Unchained Melody
by bookbookbook3224
Summary: Mark/Addison. Mark Sloan left New York when he found his wife, Lexie, in the throws with his best friend Sam. When he found his way to Seattle, all on his mind was a new job and Derek Shepherd's wedding. Maybe sleeping with a few dozen women. He didn't want or expect to find love, or a gorgeous redhead who reciprocated it. Very AU.
1. Chapter 1: Seperator

**Hello! I'm Alex – no that's not my name, but it's a reference and tribute to many things I like (ironically, amidst the things I don't being the name Alex) and it's what you can call me because I'm not revealing my real one.**

 **This is a Maddison fanfic – hence, I don't recommend reading this to people who don't like Mark or Addison. I am not English, but I'm fluent in the language and England is where I was raised – hence, I am liable to making certain technical language errors and such things, because what I'm not fluent in is American (that being said, I like to think I know the basics, because I'm pretty annoyed when somebody writes a Grey's Anatomy fic and writes 'Mummy' instead of 'Mommy', and vice versa with Harry Potter fics).**

 **Main ships appearing in the fic will be MerDer, Lexzie, and Bang (others, too, but ones I can't mention without creating spoilers). Having mentioned that, I'm inclined to add that I'm not a very nice person, and not all of those couples will celebrate happy endings.**

 **Sorry for the length of that. Anyway, enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer: if I owned Grey's Anatomy, I wouldn't spend six hours a day teaching snot-nosed brats in a stuffy classroom and wasting that psychology degree.**

 **Unchained Melody**

 **Chapter 1: Seperator**

Stepping inside his wife's Massachusetts apartment, Mark Sloan was immediately struck by the thought that something was wrong.

For one, there was the fact that it was completely dark throughout the apartment; this was definitely a strange occurrence, because Lexie – despite the supposedly amazing eidetic memory which was the cause of her skipping third grade – was constantly forgetting to turn off the lights in her apartment. Mark knew better than anyone, because he was the one paying the electricity bills.

And then there were the obvious factors. The heavy aroma of scented candles hung in the air, stifling, and further inside, somebody moaned loudly – he, being an expert in sex, instantly recognised just what type of moan it was. In the corner of the corridor, where Lexie's usual pile of abandoned sneakers and trainers lay, there was also a well-polished pair of men's leather shoes. Alessandro Berluti, fancy, very nice. Definitely not Mark's – two sizes too small, in fact.

Feeling like a character in a horror movie, Mark stepped further into the apartment, in the direction of the bedroom door, which was the only door closed. He heard the faint sound of creaking bed springs, and vaguely remembered telling Lexie to remind him to have them fixed when he'd visited last weekend.

Mark stayed with Lexie every weekend. It was a compromise, as Lexie lived in Columbia, and Mark in Manhattan – they were married, but Lexie wasn't going to give up Harvard (who would?) and Mark refused to leave the practice he'd spent so many years working on. Today wasn't during the weekend, it was Thursday.

He'd left earlier than usual, for the sole purpose of surprising Lexie with a romantic get-away for their third anniversary. Because they'd been so distant lately, and it felt too much like the relationship Mark's parents had shared for him to be comfortable.

It was their anniversary. The third one.

That thought was the one which pushed Mark to slam open the door, revealing his wife and best friend in the throws.

That was his bed. He'd paid for it. He slept in it. And those sheets? The Italian paisley, the ones he had paid for? Those were his favourite sheets.

He glared at the two, frozen in place, Lexie still sat atop Sam, the two of them completely naked.

"Classy," Mark told them, his voice stony. He chuckled coldly, feeling some of that cruelty he'd felt watching his mother convulse on the floor as a child – overdosing, again – and later watching his father, dry-eyed, as the man who raised him was taken off life-support. "I mean," he continued, "who knew the two of you could have such an affinity for clichés?"

"Mark," Lexie started to speak, her voice shaky and face pale, crawling off Mark, hugging a sheet to her chest.

"Really, Lexie?" he asked her before she could continue. "What's with the sheet? No need to be modest. After all, we've both seen you naked here."

She flinched.

"Mark, look-" Sam too started to say, but he was also intercepted before he could finish.

"Hey, though," Mark said. "At least we don't have kids, eh Lexie? That'd mess them up; just like your dead Mommy and drunk Daddy did you, right? And Sam," he _tsk_ -ed, "isn't a professor meant to know better than to sleep with his student? And what would Naomi say? Because she doesn't know, right? You always were a coward. And Lexie and I don't have kids, but what's gonna happen to your Maya? I don't think she'd be pleased to hear her Daddy was whoring around with some Other Woman."

"Mark!" Lexie exclaimed. "Mark! Don't! I just-"

"You just _what_ , Lexie?" he asked, voice harsh. "What, did he hold a gun to your head? I don't see any guns and, from what I saw, it was you who was on top."

He pushed open the closet doors, and began to pile clothes into his arms.

"Mark?" Lexie asked, panicking and pushing herself up off the floor, forgetting all about the sheet and her modesty. "Mark? Mark? What are you doing, Mark?"

"Oh, don't worry," he told her, voice icy and smooth. "You can keep your stuff, though Lord knows where you'll put it when I stop paying all your bills. I'm just collecting my things, and then I'll leave the two of you to whatever you were doing before. I'll mail you the divorce papers."

"Mark! Mark, I'm sorry!" she yelled, clutching at his shoulder. "Mark, stay! We can get through this – we can, we're _MarkandLexie_ – but you have to stay, or else, or else we won't be able to!"

He shook off her clammy hands. "Save it, Lex," he told her, voice finally softening, if only in the slightest. "I was a manwhore before I met you, you know that. I stayed for you, I tried for you. I didn't wanna be my father. I loved you. I did it, Lexie – if I can do it, so could you have. And at least I got my wish, because it's not my father I am now; it my mother. _F**k_ you."

She stayed perfectly still as he left, her mouth open slightly.

The door slammed shut behind him.

" _Loved_?" she murmured, a shell shocked expression on her face as she slowly lowered herself back down onto the bed, his words forever reverberating inside her head.

Weary after a long seven and a half hours, Mark sat down at the bar vowing to never fly economy again. The bar was dimly-lit and over a decade had passed, but he still recognised the man he'd once considered as good as his brother.

"Scotch on the rocks," he told the bartender, waiting for Derek to notice him.

It didn't take long; Derek swung around to face him as soon as he heard the familiar voice, his face breaking into a smile. Apparently he too had found it easier than it would have been expected to recognise a man he hadn't seen for long.

"Mark Sloan!" he exclaimed, hugging him. It wasn't the manliest action, especially in a bar full of hot drunk women Mark planned to pick up later, but the day had been so tiring and emotionally (despite the ways he'd behaved) draining that he welcomed the other man's warm embrace.

"Derek Shepherd," Mark grinned. "You've gotten old."

"You've actually grown some facial hair," Derek informed him. "I no longer hold the right to call you Baby Face. Did you get a nose job?"

"I see you've given up on that moustache," Mark replied, and then as to explain his nose, said, "I slept with Celia Kim and her husband found out. He's throws pretty good punches for a puny little businessman of his kind."

Derek laughed. "You haven't changed at all," he said, and Mark downed some of his scotch to stop himself from feeling any hurt at the comment (after all, had he really changed?) and refrain from talking about matters he'd rather not be talking about.

"Speaking of changes," he said, "good luck on your wedding. It's in two days right?" He gave Derek a 'good luck' pat on the back.

"Yeah," Derek smiled nervously. "I was meant to be having my bachelor party right now, but it was just me and Burke and my brother in-law. The in-law got food poisoning and cancelled on me, and even if Burke didn't hate me, he got paged half an hour ago. Something about a cardiac tamponade being transferred over from Mercy West."

"Aren't you a loner?" Mark laughed. "What happened to Weiss? I thought you and he stayed friends when you were the only ones left at Columbia."

"We are. He and Savvy are currently in Slovenia completing the adoption process on their kid, Andres – very cute boy, as far as I can tell; four years old, loves the circus. They were meant to be back in time, but there was some kind of complication and now they're staying a bit longer."

Mark frowned. "How come they're adopting?" he asked.

"The breast cancer finally got to Delphine," Derek explained.

"Oh, sorry," Mark mumbled, although he had no idea who Delphine was.

"She was Savvy's cousin," Derek's continued, "and the only other woman in her family who so far hadn't contracted the cancer. Savvy freaked out and had her breasts and whole reproductive system removed."

"That's terrible. How is she? How'd Weiss take it?"

He'd only known Savvy briefly, back when she and Weiss were still dating. She was a very sarcastic blonde, from what he remembered, and best friends with Nancy, one of Derek's four sisters. She'd been studying law. She hadn't seemed to be the kind of person who got sick, which Mark supposed was stupid of him to think, given he was a surgeon and knew anybody could get sick.

"They're doing okay," said Derek. 'They're about to begin nipple reconstruction, nearing the end of the process, you know?"

"Well, I do specialise in breasts," Mark smirked, before sobering slightly. "Hey, Derek, that best man position you offered me a few weeks back?" he asked. "Does this mean it's still open?"

"Really?" Derek beamed. "Burke doesn't want to be anything more than a groomsman, and Rose was going to have Paul – her brother," he added, seeing Mark's confusion, "do it, but he's kind of a douche and I'd rather have a douche I'm best friends with be my best man than him."

"Gee, thanks," Mark said drily, but he was grinning widely. He swigged the remains of his drink in a single gulp, then bought Derek to his feet.

"As best man, I am going to make sure you experience the best damn bachelor party of your life," Mark declared, winking at the tiny blonde in the corner booth.

He woke up naked on somebody's floor, a slight breeze blowing in his direction from a nearby fireplace. The blonde from last night was standing over him awkwardly, wrapped in a robe.

"This is…" she murmured, "humiliating on so many levels."

Mark winked at her again, seemingly unashamed of his nakedness – because hey, did he really have anything to be ashamed of?

"You have to go," she told him firmly.

Mark smirked. "Come back down here," he proposed, "we'll continue right back where we left off…"

"You have to go," she repeated. "I'm late. Which isn't what you want to be on your first day." She tossed him his clothes. He sniffed them and shrugged; no point changing. They didn't smell too bad and anyway, he'd be changing into scrubs once he got to work.

"I'm Mark," he introduced himself once he was decent, holding out a hand for her to shake. "I start my job today too. Where d'you work?"

"Meredith," she offered. "I'm an intern at…" she started but trailed off. "You know what?" she said. "We don't have to do the thing."

"Oh, we can do anything you want."

"The _Thing_ ," she told him. "Exchange the personal details of our lives, pretend to care… look, I'm going upstairs to shower. And you won't be here when I get back."

He glanced out the window, which didn't have any curtains. The thought that anybody could have seen him naked or in the throws crossed his mind, but he didn't particularly care. What he _did_ care about was the shiny silver Mercedes he'd rented, which wasn't parked out front, or anywhere in sight for that matter.

"Hey, where's my car?" he yelled after her.

"Joe took your keys when you got onto your twelve shot!" she called back.

"Who's Joe?"

"The bartender! At the Emerald City Bar! From last night!"

"You're on first name terms with the bartender?"

No answer.

Grumbling to himself, Mark exited the house and pulled out his mobile to look for directions. He didn't have the time to actually take a look at them, because he found himself falling backwards as he crashed into someone.

He managed to steady himself before he could fall, but she wasn't so lucky.

"Goddamit," she swore, ignoring Mark's offered hand and pushing herself up. "Thanks for watching where you're going," she told him sarcastically, brushing invisible dirt off a dress Mark recognised to be Marc Jacobs.

"I'm sorry," he apologised smoothly, handing her the files she'd dropped.

"It's okay," she replied, before glancing at her watch. " _Crap_ ," she murmured, rushing toward a beat-up Chevy parked nearby.

"That your car?" he asked her. "Doesn't look very you."

"It's my roommate's," she told him. "We carpooled yesterday in my car, and I left it at the hospital so she and my other roommate would have a way of getting back."

"How'd you get back?" he asked her curiously.

"I took a cab," she explained. "Probably the better choice, seeing as I'd been drinking anyway. Not," she added hastily, "that I'm a drunk or anything. It was just a bad day."

She glanced again at her watch. "I really have to go," she told him apologetically. "Work emergency. Anyway, see you later, neighbour!"

She drove away, and he cursed himself for not asking directions to Joe's, because he sucked at map-reading. It was rude of her, to be so distracting with her red hair and pretty face that he couldn't think clearly. Like when he left girls he slept with Sam's number, or leaned in extra close but didn't kiss them so they'd be more likely to screw him.

Wait, he thought suddenly. _Neighbour?_

 _Oh._


	2. Chapter 2: Dog Days Are Over

**Hi! Me! Again! This update took forever. I can't promise anything better, though, and I'm hoping it's an okay length. Longer than most things I've written, at any rate. Anyway, so, I feel like a long Author's Note right at the beginning would just kind of get in the way and be kind of annoying, so I'm putting it at the end, where I'm also replying to reviews – thanks for those, by the way!**

 **Unchained Melody**

 **Chapter 2: Dog Days Are Over**

Seattle stretched out miles, at some point blurring into the blue of the sea.

 _Dearly beloved, we have come together in the presence of God to witness and bless the joining together of this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony._

He had a brilliant view of it all, a prime spot from behind the glass back wall of the coma ward.

 _The union of husband and wife is intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given each other in prosperity and adversity; and, when it is God's will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord._

It was a seriously good view. The kind an artist or photographer could only wish for. Somehow, sitting cross-legged on the hard, linoleum floor behind the thin glass gave it all a beautiful kind of perspective. Gave even the bruised sky and dark clouds of yonder a broody kind of beauty which, although he wasn't aware of it, perfectly matched his own.

 _Therefore marriage is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, deliberately, and in accordance with the purposes for which it was instituted by God._

Although he'd worked inside Seattle Grace for over – what? – twelve years, somewhere around about, and had walked through this same dreary room at least twice a week rounding for most of that, it was only four years ago that his sister had shown him the true serenity it held.

 _Into this union Rose Anne Keane and Derek Christopher Shepherd now come to be joined. If any of you can show just cause why they may not be lawfully wed, speak now, or else forever hold your peace._

Before Amy came to Seattle Grace, he, Addison and Callie had hung out in the pit. They'd thought it a good idea, because they'd be on site for any cool surgeries, and there was really nowhere else to hang out that they knew of.

 _I charge you both, here in the presence of God and the witness of this company, that if either of you know any reason why you may not be married lawfully and in accordance with God's Word, do now confess it._

The coma ward was a stark contrast to the pit. The pit was always thrumming with energy, always full of people, always loud and boisterous and a good distraction. The coma ward was quiet, nothing but the gentle beeps and blips of the machines keeping patients alive. You didn't get comatose bodies in the pit, not the kind you got in the coma ward, all of which held charts declaring 'permanent vegetative state'. There were no crowds in the coma ward, not like the ones in the pit; visitors of the coma ward always stopped coming, in the end.

 _Rose, do you wish to have this man to be your husband; to live together with him in the covenant of marriage? Do you promise to love him, comfort him, honour and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful unto him as long as you both shall live?_

It was dark and gloomy in the coma ward. But Derek liked it. The pit was good for distractions; the coma ward was good for thinking. Would Mark like the coma ward? He would. He'd say it was all creepy, the corpse-like people everywhere, and weren't people in comas meant to be able to hear it all? But he'd like it, he would. The mark of a best friend was a man you could spend years away from but still know like the back of your hand, and that was Mark. Mark would like the coma ward; he'd have to show it to him, as an apology for involving him in the whole wedding fiasco.

 _I do._

Right now, Derek wanted to be in the pit. He wanted to be in the midst of the hustle and the bustle, wanted to be there to witness all the blood and guts, was willing to resort to the scut work so that there was something to keep him busy.

But it wasn't guilt that was eating him alive, not guilt about what he'd done. It was guilt about the nothingness he felt pertaining the matter.

 _Derek, do you wish to have this woman to be your wife; to live together with her in the covenant of marriage? Do you promise to love her, comfort her, honour and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful unto her as long as you both shall live?_

He wasn't working. He couldn't work. Officially, he was still on leave and Richard wasn't comfortable with allowing him to work without a psychiatric evaluation (just in case, how patronising could the man get?), but unofficially, it was because the nurses – all united behind Rose as their friend and colleague – were striking against the man they once nicknamed Mr. Darcy and now called McDouche and because he was sick of all the scathing looks he received and whispered rumours and insults he heard whilst in the pit earlier.

 _I… can't-don't. I don't._

It was somewhat understandable, to him. How people could look at him that way and spread all that gossip when he was the ass who left his fiancée at the alter and fled out the door without a second thought.

 _His mother was there. She was wearing her best dress, the green one she'd worn to Amelia's graduation. His sisters were there too. Nancy. Kate. Liz. Amy. One mother, four sisters, three brothers in-law, nine nieces, and five nephews._

He'd just ran from his own wedding. He should have been in a bar, drinking. Or home, hiding. Logically speaking, he shouldn't have been at work. He should have at least be sat by the bed of Beth Tanner – their favourite patient – talking with his friends – Addison and Callie were going to love Mark – about it, or about anything but it.

 _Further back there are six uncles, twenty three cousins, four great-aunts and Uncle Keith who's definitely family but definitely not an uncle._

This must have been depressing. This was depressing. He needed surgery, a patient, a distraction. Something.

 _Even Murray the f*****g Pug was there, drooling on the scarlet church carpet._

Someone.

 _Debbie the nurse, on Rose's side. Tyler. Over ninety-eight nurses. The Chief himself, over there with Adele. Callie. Over fifty-six other colleagues._

Maybe he should have taken a leaf out of Mark's book. Had a one night stand. Dated a rebound. Got over Rose quick so all this wouldn't come back to bite him on the ass later.

 _Dearly beloved._

"Dr. Shepherd?"

He was meant to have gotten married yesterday. The entire ceremony, as far as it had gotten, had been re-playing itself over and over in his head ever since. He'd been feeling guilty for not feeling guilty, for God's sake.

And then a woman walked into view. He wasn't sure how he hadn't heard her approach, in the quiet of the coma ward, but he hadn't. She was small. Hair the kind of dishwater colour which was brown when you looked at it from the angle he was sat at, but blonde where it was hit by the fluorescent hospital light. Green eyes. Nice eyes.

"Dr. Shepherd?" she repeated.

He had an M.D., but it took him a second minute to realise she was talking to him. He felt stoned. Or like he'd just successfully performed three craniotomies and a huge-ass tumour removal in one day.

Maybe he needed more coffee.

"May I help you?" he asked politely, too politely. He threw in a charming smile, to make up for the lack of flirtatiousness in his voice.

She seemed nervous. Did that make him imposing?

"Uh, Dr. Bailey has a patient in the uh, pit with a emphysema, a cracked pelvis and crushed lower body, definite damage to the spinal cord, and a skull fracture – possibly two. She, uh, needs you as a consult, probably surgical?"

"Why didn't Dr. Bailey page me?" he asked. "I mean, I understand it's fun to torture interns, but…"

"She, uh, did," she said. "But you're not officially working today and don't have it on you?" He didn't, hadn't even realised. "I asked around and a lot of people said you come here sometimes. And you are. Here."

"I am," he replied, pushing himself up off the floor and beginning to walk toward the exit. He looked over his shoulder. Saw her still stood there. "Well?" he asked. "I'm going to need to know the patient's condition and current location, Doctor."

"Grey," she supplied, jogging to catch up with him. "Dr. Grey. The patient was conscious but uh, extremely confused upon arrival and has since passed out and not woken up. He's in CT now, and they're debating taking him for X-Rays next before completing any further treatment because Ortho aren't comfortable doing anything before they know the extent of the lower-body damage."

"Dr. Grey," Derek said. "It suits you."

* * *

The case was indeed surgical.

John Daniel Meyer had a depressed skull fracture and very nearly irreversibly damaged spinal cord which meant his chances of not suffering paraplegia – even quadriplegia - upon waking up were near-impossible. And that was just the neuro part of it all – his heart was a mess, his lungs were a mess, and Ortho were actually considering amputation of both legs, they'd been crushed so badly.

The patient was in the ICU, though, and Dr. Shepherd could take off his cape and mask and become Derek again. _It's a beautiful day to save some lives._

He'd seen Dr. Grey watching him during the surgery. Which shouldn't have been surprising, really; interns were meant to do that, watch and learn. At this early point in the game, she wouldn't have been asked to do anything more than monitor the patient's BP and maybe do some suction work.

The romantic in him liked to believe she was interested in more than just the miracle he was performing, just like he was more focused on the fierce concentration on her face than what she was truly doing.

He'd have liked to talk with her some more, propose a date, flirt a little, but she was gone. Probably told to monitor the patient post-op, or maybe trolling the pit for cases already.

He liked her. She was fresh. He wasn't Mr. Darcy or McDouche to her yet.

Addison and Amelia were charting by Beth Tanner's bed when he returned to the coma ward, a cappuccino in one hand and a bagel in the other. They'd page him if Mr. Meyer woke up or his condition deteriorated.

"Hey," he greeted them, sitting down beside them. "Any interesting cases? I just operated on the car crash victim with the depressed skull fracture and the spinal cord damage."

"Show-off," Amelia grumbled, but they both knew she was only joking.

"I had a uteroplacental apoplexy," Addison offered. "I managed to save the baby – healthy baby girl – but the mother haemorrhaged and bled out on the table."

"Nice," he grinned. "Where's Callie?"

"Surgery," Amelia explained. "Re-construction of a teenager's badly broken arm. She showed me the scans. Looked messy. Lots'a bone shards. Candy bar?"

He took it, stuffing it into his pocket. He tore off a quarter of his bagel, handing it over to Addison.

"Cream cheese?" she asked, eyebrow raised.

"Do you even have to ask?" he replied.

"How very New York," Amelia yawned, stretching and half-accidentally whacking Derek on the head with her arm. "Derek, can I scrub in on your two o'clock craniotomy?"

"Sure," he replied with a full mouth, finishing the last of his bagel and beginning on his aforementioned candy bar.

"Manners," Addison reprimanded him, reaching over to muss his hair the way she knew he hated it.

"Sure, Mom," he said, poking her in the shoulder.

"I need you for a one thirty consult on a woman whose amniocentesis suggests her baby has myeloschisis."

"I'll be there."

There was maybe a moment of quiet as he and Amelia finished their candy bars and Addison her bagel, and then Amy piped up again like the annoying younger sister she was.

"Hey Derek," she said slyly, a matching look on her face. "You weren't trying to tell us all something with your little runaway act yesterday, were you? You aren't getting it on with the handsome fellow who you reportedly celebrated your bachelor thing with?"

"Idiot," he replied, giving her a light tug of the ponytail. "That was Mark."

"Mark?" Amelia repeated, and he could swear her face lit up as though it were Christmas. "Mark! Is he still here? I didn't get to speak with him earlier, 'cause of all the chaos your little runaway gig created."

Derek ran a hand through his hair. "Don't be ridiculous," he said. "Of course Mark is still here. He's staying here. Or, you know, will until he sleeps with somebody's wife and runs to Nevada so he can escape yet another angry husband."

"So, who's this elusive Mark?" Addison asked. "Sounds like a real charmer."

"Oh, he is," Amelia assured her. "I grew up with him. He was practically Ma's other son, adopted son, whatever. He and Derek met in kindergarten and have been all buddy-buddy BFFs since. Or, were, anyway. They fought over med schools ages ago and haven't spoken since. Mark still sends Christmas presents for the kids, you know." She was referring to Derek's several nieces and nephews.

"He slept with half our graduating class," Derek told her. "The female half. Lucky b*****d even managed to get the lesbians into bed. Staying at the Archfield by the way, Amy," he added for his sister's benefit. "In case you'll be wanting to see him or whatever. He's gonna work here, but he's only meeting Richard later this evening to sign all the contracts and crap."

"Specialty?"

"Plastics," Derek and Amelia told her simultaneously.

A beeping interrupted them before either could say anything further. Each doctor automatically reached for their pagers, but it was Addison who was the lucky one being paged.

"S**t," she murmured. "Sorry, gotta go,' she told them, "Johnston baby's in respiratory distress."

She was gone before Derek or Amelia could say anything.

* * *

Meredith groaned, slamming John Meyer's chart onto the nurses' desk and looking at the man behind her with a clearly irritated face.

"Go away," she told him. "Not again, not ever. You work here, you're my superior, and I don't like you."

"Well," he said, pretending to look injured. "I only said hello."

She glared at him. "Go away," she told her one night stand.

"Now," he grinned. "Is that any way to speak to a colleague? A superior?"

Her glare intensified.

"Fine, fine," he pacified her. "I'll leave you alone, but I need you to do me a favour."

"I don't do that kind of thing," Meredith snapped. "No matter how slutty you think I am."

"Please," he said. "That's what nurses are for – " Olivia glared at him from where she was sorting folders nearby – "and besides, that's not what I mean. See, Dr. Grey, I saw this interesting ad on the bulletin board…"

Meredith turned around to face him, hands on hips. " _No_!" she nearly shrieked. "Are you kidding me? You're my superior. We have boundaries- there's a line. There's no point in you going away if it means I'll have to see you at home everyday. Besides, I already have roommates. Interns. You wouldn't like them."

"I'd live," he said, and then, " _please_ ," he continued to badger her. "You wouldn't see me. I wouldn't cross the line. It would just be a formality. I usually spend the nights with flavours of the week anyway. Come on, I'd pay half – yeah, half – the rent, which I know you interns would find useful, and I swear, the line and all that crap will stay uncrossed, untouched."

"No," she said, leaving and heading for John Meyer's ICU room, where she'd need to take his stats again. Every half an hour, Dr. Torres had warned her.

He followed her. Of course. Annoying man.

He was quiet for a good chunk of the journey and then… "A cranial reconstruction," he said. "With myself and Dr. Shepherd. Learning from the best."

She felt her resolve weaken. " _Fine_ ," she said in a huff, still walking. "But you'll have to throw in a rhinoplasty and the right to be your intern on the next groundbreaking case you get."

"Deal," he replied immediately, sticking out a hand. She shook it.

He started to walk away.

"Why do you want to move in with a bunch of interns, anyway?" she muttered.

He was far enough away that she doesn't expect an answer, especially not the exasperating one he gave her.

"I like your neighbour," he called over his shoulder. "The redhead."

It was only later, when she was listening to Cristina talk about the radical cystoprostatectomy Webber and Bailey were doing next week, that she realised just which neighbour Sloan was talking about.

* * *

Sat at the kitchen table and talking as they waited for their popcorn to pop completely, Izzie and George were reasonably surprised when a man – George identified him as the new Dr. Sloan – stumbled up the stairs with a laughing Dr. Montgomery – Izzie scrubbed in on her uteroplacental apoplexy case, she told George, the mother died, so sad – in the direction of what they'd both thought to be the guest bedroom, or whatever.

"Uh, Mer?" Izzie called to Meredith, who was gloomily poking at Indian food as she watched Titanic on the TV. Meredith had made it very clear that she hated the movie, but there was nothing better on TV. (Izzie didn't mind; she, for one, liked it, and George had never seen it before).

"Yes?"

"Uh, why are there two attendings kinda, uh, screwing, upstairs?"

Meredith groaned. "He told me he'd make sure to always sleep with his flavours of the week at their houses," she complained. "That's so typical."

Noticing Izzie's questioning gaze and George's dumbfounded one, Meredith added, "Oh, yeah, Mark's living here now. You know, like you guys. I get to scrub in on a cranial reconstruction with Shepherd, which is awesome, right? Cristina was so jealous."

"Cranial reconstruction?" Izzie repeated incredulously.

"Mark?" George squeaked. "Since when is Dr. Sloan Mark?"

"He's living here now, George," Izzie explained. "We're not gonna call our roommate Dr. Sloan; that would just be stupid. Hey, popcorn's ready!"

* * *

They flopped back onto the bed, panting and smiling.

"Hi, Mark Sloan," he introduced himself jokingly.

" _The_ Mark Sloan? My cousins sing your praises," she said.

"Guess beauty like yours doesn't run in the family," he flirted.

She laughed. "Addison Forbes Montgomery," she replied.

"Pleasure to meet you properly, Addison Forbes Montgomery."

"Likewise, Mark Sloan. You're a real charmer."

 **Okay! Yay! Maddison and a smidgen of MerDer, for you impatient people who couldn't wait (I'm kidding)!**

 **Anyway, first of all, because I forgot to mention last chapter, I've changed a few things. As you can tell, I'm sure. For one, Seattle Grace has a coma ward? I'm not entirely sure on the logistics of this, or whether patients like this would even be kept in a hospital, but the few books I've read which mention this kind of thing have coma wards inside hospitals.**

 **Also, I've messed around with Amelia and Addison's ages – you can tell with Addison more, because she's only just become an attending and I had to have her skip like two grades for even that to happen. And with Amelia, I did it because I just couldn't make sense of how it all fit into Shonda's timeline – which, by the way, I'm also changing! Every season, except one and two which are one year put together, will be equal to a year.**

 **Reviews:**

 **JustAnotherIntern14 – thank YOU. I like that you like the new approach and that I surprised you, and I really, really hope I finish this too. I plan to, anyway.**

 **Hushedgreylily – thanks! I'm a die-hard Maddison fan also, which is probably why I'm writing a Maddison fic, and I do like my twists.**

 **Guest (1) – hey, let's face it, nobody likes Rose, including me. I probably won't have much of her in the overall story. This is a MerDer and Maddison story, but I like to lay out the backstory and etc. First so their relationships can begin properly – I always hated how Meredith technically acted as Derek's rebound from his marriage with Addison, and I wanted to change that so neither relationship would be affected by it. I did post a story like this a few months ago, but deleted it because I wasn't happy with it and just couldn't carry it on because of that.**

 **Jill – hi, Jill (sorry, I just really wanted to say that, dunno why). I definitely wrote this under Awesome before, though I'm not sure if it was Allie. I know that in some fics I've told people they can call me Allie, as a nickname for Alex or whatever. I wanted to mix the story up more than before, for more shock effect. Amelia's in the story! I couldn't figure out a way to include her in the beginning but… here she is! I wouldn't call Mark and Meredith sleeping together MerMark given they were both so… you know… in the beginning, more like… exposition?**

 **Guest (2) – thanks!**


	3. Chapter 3: Brand New Sun

**So, yes, there are ridiculously long periods of times between each chapter. I know, I'm sorry, but it's school holidays in the UK (not sure if it is in other places, too) and you'd think I wrote more when I didn't have as much work to do, but I was only less productive. And to be honest, it's not that I have trouble with writing, it's that I have trouble writing these beginning chapters, because I have to set foundations and etc., etc. And all the action starts later. Anyway, thank you all those who reviewed, as always. Hope you enjoy. Disclaimer previously stated.**

 **Unchained Melody**

 **Chapter 3: Brand New Sun**

The sky was a deep burgundy, and the sun was only just coming into view; you could barely call the time of day morning.  
Most of Seattle slept. But she didn't, and neither did he.

How can you not know what juju is?" Addison asked as she set to making the aforementioned beverage, Mark sat at the table eating cereal, his seat opposite from where Addison was stood.

It sounds like hot chocolate from what you've said," Mark told her, an amused expression on his face as he ate. "In which case I do know what it is.

She added marshmallows to what was currently hot chocolate but would soon become juju. "Don't talk with your mouth full," she chastised him.

He laughed at her and choked on a Froot Loop.

That'll teach you," she told him, finally finishing with the juju and setting a cup down before him on the table.

He nodded a thanks, his face red, and immediately took a gulp, effectively burning his tongue. She laughed as he started to choke again, and gulped down a glass of tap water.

"It's not funny," he told her once he'd downed a second glass. "I could have died, and then where would you be?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "I'm sorry, the world would fall into despair if you were no longer alive."

"Damn right," he nodded, taking a more cautious sip of the juju. "It is good," he said, genuinely surprised. "Even better than Ma Shepherd's Christmas hot chocolate. What the heck did you put in this?"

"A magician never shares their secrets," she smirked, eating a spoonful of his Froot Loops and ignoring his protest of 'Hey!'

"You probably drugged it," he joked, "and now you're going to take advantage of me and my brilliant body."

"You keep on dreaming," she laughed. "By round four, you're just kind of boring."

"Blasphemy," he gasped, making her laugh more.

"So," he continued slyly. "If I were to insinuate a round five you wouldn't enjoy it?"

"I don't know. Would I?"

"Challenge accepted."  
And then they were kissing. And she smelt like talcum powder and cinnamon, and some kind of probably expensive, probably French perfume, and she tasted of hot chocolate and Froot Loops. And then they were kissing more, and she'd moved from across the table to against the counter, and-

"I am so sorry. I'll, just, uh, I'm just gonna… yeah, I'm gonna go, feed my turtle."

 _Godammit O'Malley._

She sighed, and he – somewhat reluctantly – stepped back so she could slip off the counter.

"I should probably go," she said, "you know, before my friends or your… weird intern roommates who I'm not even gonna ask about say something or do something, or… You'll probably want your shirt back."

She started to slip out of it, but he stepped closer again, trying to ignore their close proximity, and stopped her.

"No, uh, keep it," he said, even though the Columbia t-shirt was always a huge favourite of his. "And, uh, you should probably get dressed before you take it off. Because believe me, I'd love to see you naked again, but you probably wouldn't want my weird intern roommates seeing you naked too."

"Yeah," she murmured, blushing. It looked cute. "Bye."

"Bye," he told her.

He sat down at the table, finished his juju and cereal.

* * *

"Hey," Callie greeted her when she entered the house, her hair a mess and last night's clothes crumpled. "Long night?"

She poured herself a cup of coffee, already starting to feel the repercussions of staying up all night (because the nap between rounds three and four didn't count). "Kind of," she told Callie. "But in a maybe good way. What're you doing awake?"

"Late surgery," Callie told her. "Was he good?"

She sat down beside Callie, Mark's t-shirt still clutched in her hand, because he did say she could keep it. "Incredible. Where's Amy?"

"Passed out on the couch. She drank tit-for-tat with Taylor from Dermatology."

"Ouch," Addison winced.

"I know."

"Did she at least get something out of it?"

"Nah. Too drunk to do anything but flirt. But she'll learn. That's gonna be one killer hangover. Cwynar – you know, one of the new Plastics guys for the new wing, Webber's new project – says she was on her eleventh by the time Joe took her keys."

"At least she can hold her alcohol."

"At least there's that." Callie took a sip of Addison's coffee.

"You're charting?" she asked.

"Couldn't sleep. Adrenaline from the surgery, and way too much coffee. Derek moved in while you were out."

"Into the bedroom next door to mine, right? Because you know the one at the end of the corridor is strictly for guests, and we all know he isn't going to move out again for at least another year."

"Yeah. Makes sense anyway, because that poster of his is still nailed to the wall."

"Idiot. Vandalising my walls. With The Clash of all things too."

Callie patted her arm comfortingly. "There, there," she said, and then they both jumped at the sound of a beeping pager, each reaching for her own.

"It's me," Callie said. "911. Sorry."

She was already gathering her things, heading for the door.

"It's fine," Addison said. "I'll film Amelia's hangover for you, and we'll use it to teach our kids not to drink one day."

"Deal!"

The door slammed behind her.

Looking around as though there were somebody else inside the room to judge her, Addison held the crumpled Columbia t-shirt to her nose and sniffed. It smelt like him, like coffee and leather and mints and aftershave.

She smiled. 

* * *

Amelia's hangover was everything it had promised to be. The resident awoke, bleary-eyed and pale, and immediately ran to the kitchen where Addison had stayed with her own charts, retching into the sink.

"I hope you'll clean that up, Shepherd," Addison told her. "'Cause I sure as Hell am not."

"Sure," Amelia gasped, before retching again.

Derek smirked from where he was sat beside Addison, eating muesli and reading the New York Times. "Rough night?" he asked.

"You forgotten you live 3000 miles away from New York?" she replied, voice hoarse, before downing half a bottle of water.

"God," she moaned, retching again.

"Should I assume you won't be coming to work today?" Addison asked, eyebrows raised, as she put aside yet another chart.

"Nah," Amelia gasped. "I'll be fine. Nothing the Amelia Shepherd hangover remedy won't cure."

Derek snorted. Addison, with a sigh, stood and walked over to where Amelia continued to retch, holding back her hair.

"Thanks," Amelia muttered as she finally finished sometime later, leaning back against the counter. "You can pick the movie tonight even though it's my turn?"

"Yes," Addison said. "I will. But you're still cleaning that up."

"Fine," Amelia sighed, before beginning to rummage through the fridge.

"You can't seriously be hungry?" Derek asked, still munching on that rabbit food of his.

Amelia pulled out a slice of pizza, some left-over Chinese take-out, and a juicebox. There was little inside the fridge that wasn't take-out or a drink.

"Apparently I can be," she replied. "Besides, Amelia Shepherd hangover remedy, remember?"

"That pizza's been there at least four days," Addison told her. "And Derek's picked out all the shrimp in that Chinese food."

Amelia shrugged and stuffed an egg roll in her mouth. "Good for a cleanse then," she said with a full mouth.

"Table manners in this city," Addison muttered, exasperated, as she collected all her charts.

"I have an appointment with Mrs. Jones in half an hour," she told them as she left the room. "Thanks for the consult Derek, by the way. You'll be doing the surgery, too, right?"

"Yeah," he said, also with a full mouth.

Addison rolled her eyes and left.

Amelia threw up, and upon finishing and taking another sip of water continued with her pizza.

It was Derek's turn to roll his eyes.

"Want some?" Amelia offered.

If he rolled his eyes anymore, they'd make a 360 degree turn in their sockets.

"Suit yourself," Amelia shrugged. "Hey, the pepperoni here's going kinda green! Wanna see?"

He stood. "No thanks," he told her. "I think I'll ask Addison for a ride to the hospital. You know, save energy and keep the planet healthy and stuff."

She laughed once he'd gone, and then she threw up, but she threw up smiling because she didn't feel sick anymore. And they'd been so cynical.

Amelia arrived at the hospital just in time to catch a trauma.

* * *

The busty, blonde nurse – Mark vaguely remembered her saying she was peds, or maybe a scrub nurse – smiled coquettishly, twirling a lock of hair around her grinned back, working familiar charm. She giggled.

He was, after all, a free man now. A bachelor. And he had, what? Three, four years of catching up on manwhoring to do.

"So I'll see you in the OR, right?" Derek finished, looking at Mark expectantly. Mark obviously hadn't been listening to what he'd been saying. "Mark," he repeated.  
"Relax, Shep," Mark said. "I'll be fine, the patient will be fine. I'm the damn best plastic surgeon on the east – west, whatever – coast."

They were sharing a patient, a two year old with Crouzon syndrome in for a cranial reconstruction. Mark couldn't say he'd missed the control freak side of his best friend.

"How can I relax when you've completely ignored everything I've told you about the patient's history and needs in the past ten minutes? We both know you aren't going to read through the chart," Derek damn near nearly shouted, before striding off in a huff.

"Dr. Shepherd?" a timid O'Malley tried to follow him. "I'm on your service today?"

"Check on Allie Gilbert, pre-op and post-op," Derek told him coldly, not even bothering to turn around.

The tall blonde intern – the model one, her – came up to him, wringing her hands nervously. "Dr. Sloan?" she asked.

"I'll have a bone dry cappuccino," he told the intern, still looking flirtatiously at the blonde. "And hop to it, Sanders. I don't have all day."

"It's Stevens actually… remember, I'm your roommate?"

"That's nice, Sullivan. The coffee." He shook his head to the nurse, "Interns," he said with a 'what can you do' smile. "Hopeless, you know?"

He winked and she followed him into the nearest supply closet.

When he exited twenty minutes later, Blonde Intern – he needed to find a name for her – was waiting for him.

"Your coffee," she told him, disapproval clearly written on her face as she handed him the cup.

He took a sip. "Lukewarm," he told her. "You can do better than that, Blondie." The nurse – Emma, Emily? Began with an 'E' – exited the supply closet, smoothing down her hair and giggling as she caught his eye. "Next time you bring me a hot coffee, I'll consider allowing you to scrub in with me. For now, Sanders, you can go down to the pit and practice your stitching. I'll be in OR 5 if you need me."

The blonde intern glared at him. "It's Stevens," she muttered under her breath as she left. It took a lot of self-control for him not to make a sexual comment toward her, and by the time he was completely in control of his mouth, he'd realised he was late for surgery and was on his way.

He celebrated a successful surgery with Monica-or-Mandy from downstairs and sent Stevens/Sanders/Sullivan/whatever to manage the patient post-op in the ICU, make herself useful.

* * *

They met for lunch in the coma ward. Derek still wasn't comfortable with eating in the cafeteria, where he could bump into Rose or a vindictive nurse friend of hers at any moment, and the idea of eating without him there appeared absurd to his friends.

So they sat around Beth Tanner's bed, eating and waiting for Callie. Derek told them all about a craniotomy he performed and Addison was moaning about Dr. Chamberlain, the current Head of Obstetrics, also known as Hitler and The Bane of Addison Montgomery's Existence. Amelia was smug about her hangover having already passed, and boasting freely about it.

By the time Callie did arrive, topics had shifted and the three of them were in the midst of a heated debate on whether or not braindead, five months pregnant Ella Wilson should be kept on life support on her husband's orders for the next three months until the baby is viable.

"Hey," Callie greeted them, plopping herself down beside Addison. "The circulation in John Meyer's legs is too weak; he's developing gangrene in his toes and we're chopping off his legs."

"Damn," Derek sighed, before looking up again in surprise. "What are you doing here, Mark?" he asked.

Mark grinned from where he was stood behind Addison and Callie. He was in a good mood, because he managed a quickie with Hollie the scrub nurse before catching Callie. "What, why so sad to see my handsome face?" he asked. "Hi, Red."

"Don't call me Red," she told him. "Hi Mark. Your shirt's missing a button."

He didn't mind, even relished wearing shirts missing buttons after four years of monogamy.

"I found him by the coffee cart, harassing interns," Callie said. "I took pity on the poor Scrooge and took him to see his li'l buddy."

"Thanks for abandoning me before the end of my first week, Shep," Mark said, sitting down on Addison's other side. "Really feeling the love."

"Please," Derek replied. "You've probably tricked at least four women into giving you 'tours' around the hospital by now."

And then the topic was changing again, and they were discussing the case of some John Meyer, and he did love getting tours from different women four times a day and walking around in shirts missing buttons and slipping into supply closets with nurses whose names he couldn't remember – he loved being free after so long - but just her presence beside him gave him the thrill of freedom, and he leaned over and whispered in Addison's ear anyway.

"Dinner, Red. You and me, tomorrow night. I'll even pick you up after your shift."

And she said, "Yes," and she smiled.

And he could get any woman to go out on a date with him. It was no big deal. But his face still broke into a smile.

 **Reviews! Or review replies? Whatever!**  
 **Hushedgreylily – thanks! I do like the parallel thing, maybe a tad too much. I hope this ends up being one of those AU's for you.**  
 **Patsy/Guest – I'm glad you're giving this a chance! No, Meredith doesn't know she has a sister; she hasn't heard from or of Thatcher since Ellis left him some what? twenty six years ago? It'd make things too complicated, because- wow, thank you, I just realised Meredith slept with her sister's husband, I'm dedicating the chapter that comes into the plot to you. I think we all wanted Derek to walk on the wedding, really. Thanks!**  
 **Guest (1) – gracias!**  
 **Patsy (2?) – sorry if your reviews aren't posting, and sorry about the lengthy one you left a while ago. I have no idea what's wrong with the reviews if it isn't the sight; I've tried to do something about it, but nothing seems to have any effect on it all. Thanks anyway!**


	4. Chapter 4: I Don't Need No Doctor

**I have become one of those despicable authors you despise who update rarely and... I'm sorry. Anyway, this chapter is short and it doesn't have that much plot really, but it is useful to future chapters, which brings me to the most important part of this...  
What I'd like to do next chapter is have a time jump. This chapter leaves off everybody on a fairly good note – Addisom and Mark are together, Derek and Meredith are together... Now, I need to move forward around seven months to the bad parts following the fluffy beginning. I could write chapters leading us through those seven months, but it would be mostly pretty plotless filler chapters like this one. So, time jump? Opinions? I won't do it if you really hate the idea.**

 **Unchained Melody**

 **Chapter Four: I Don't Need No Doctor**

The two of them entered the house soaking wet, hair plastered to their heads and clothes clinging to their skin. Not that they seemed to mind; all their attention appeared to be focused on making out. They continued to do this until they finally found their way to the living room and collapsed on top of each other there, smiling.

"Sorry," Mark said as they paused for air. "I forgot it rains so much in Seattle. A walk in the park under the starlit sky sounded romantic."

She discarded a now ruined Louboutin which was previously worth approximately five hundred dollars on the floor, where it was soon joined by the other. "It was romantic," she told him. "And very original. No other guy has ever taken me out for a walk in the rain."

"Because sane people don't enjoy walks in the rain," he replied, kissing her again.

"Yeah," she murmured against his lips, "but now I'll think of you every time it rains."

It was extremely cheesy, but it was also honest and neither of them really took notice of the cheesiness when too engrossed in kissing.

"Sweet," he replied, pulling away for a moment, "my ego will never be hungry. It rains a whole lot in Seattle."

They continued to kiss until Callie and Amelia entered the room, arms filled with shopping bags. Mark and Addison were by now half-naked and too absorbed in that to notice their friends' entrance.

"I've got that bra," Callie commented. It made Amelia snigger, but was ignored by the couple.

Amelia smirked. "I'm blind!" she exclaimed, loudly so that the two broke apart in surprise, Addison with such surprise that she fell off Mark and onto the floor. "The image of my two role models engaging in coitus shall forever be burned into my retinas!"

"We haven't got to the coitus part yet," Mark grumbled.

"It's the twenty-first century, Amelia," Addison informed her dryly. "Nobody says 'coitus' anymore."

"Mark, a role model?" Callie snorted. "No wonder you turned out so messed-up."

"You wound me, cruel women!" Mark declared, dramatically clutching a hand to his chest.

"Diva," Amelia proclaimed as Addison moved his hand to the left and said,

"Your heart is here, Dr. Sloan. Unless _we women_ are wounding your lungs and not your heart."

By now, she and Mark were once more fully-dressed in their still damp clothes.

"Dr. Sloan," Mark grinned. "Are we playing doctor now? That's a turn-on."

Amelia pretended to throw up.

"Get a _room_ ," Callie told them.

"Did you get the milk? We're out of milk," Addison said, changing the subject and looking with some interest at the groceries, which were spilling out onto the table.

"Yeah," Callie said. "You two have ruined the futon."

The futon was indeed pretty wet from their soaked forms, although nowhere near what you'd call 'ruined'.

"It'll dry," Addison said.

"Or we could just burn it," Amelia offered. "Ya know, potatoe, potato."

Addison frowned. "It came with the house," she protested. "Daddy bought it for me."

"But the goddamn thing is _ugly_ ," Callie whined.

"It has sentimental value."

"Oh, like that sweater I got you last Christmas?"

"How about you put the futon in storage?" Mark finally intervened before things could escalate. "That way, it's not here but it's not gone, and nobody has to argue about whether it's ruined."

"Fine," Addison pouted. "But I'm not going to be the one putting it there."

"Mark and Derek will," Amelia said dismissively.

"When did I get roped into this?"

"When you suggested storage," Callie explained.

"And I don't suppose you two will be leaving any time soon so I can finish ruining the futon and give it one last good memory before it's put into storage."

Amelia plopped herself down into the small sliver of space between him and Addison, making herself at home there. "Sorry Sloan," she said. "It's movie night and I get first pick."

He groaned loudly but ended up enjoying himself when Amelia picked a horror movie and Addison hid her face in his chest during the especially scary scenes.

* * *

"So," Derek said, trying his best to look dreamier than his reputation right now. "I'm guessing you've heard some pretty bad stuff about me."

Meredith Grey smiled from behind the charts she was looking through. "Some," she replied. "Not all of it is bad. I think somebody mentioned that your hair products are environmentally friendly."

Derek sighed. Well, at least there at.

She began to walk away in the direction of a patient's room. He followed her.

"Listen," he said, "I swear, I'm a really good guy."

"I never said you weren't."

"You know, you could find out just how _good_ a guy I am if you go out for dinner with me."

"I have an overnight shift."

"Breakfast, then."

"Weren't you engaged just a few weeks ago?"

"'Were' is our key word here. I'm not married."

She raised her eyebrows, handing Nurse Tracy a chart. "Sensitivity," she said. "I like that in a guy."

"Are you a cereal person? Straight out of the box? Or are you all fruit and fiber-y? Pancakes? Do you like pancakes? I make really good pancakes. Or, if you want, there's this diner near the hospital where they also make really good pancakes."

He gave her his best puppy dog eyes. They took effect. She melted. She smiled.

"Fine," she said. "Breakfast. Pancakes."

The resultant grin on Derek's face was huge and, to Meredith, very cute. He looked like the geek who just got the girl.

"What's with the grin, man?" Mark asked as he passed by. "What'd you do, get laid?"

The moment was officially ruined.

* * *

Addison Montgomery boasted an immune system of steel.

The last time Addison was sick, she had her tonsils out at the age of seven following a dreadful case of tonsillitis. In the five weeks during which she was sick, she was never once visited by a member of her family. Her father was at the time working at the Cleveland Clinic and unwilling to make the journey back to Connecticut, instead sending yet another expensive China doll to add to the collection gathering in her room as consolation. Her brother was away at boarding school in Massachusetts, although he sounded suitably impressed in his reply to the letter she sent him, boasting about undergoing surgery. Her mother had no excuses, except that she liked the full liqueur cabinet far more than she ever had her daughter. As a result, Addison's only company was a firm, Bizzy-approved nanny who had no sympathy or warmth toward the child.

Thus, it is easy to see that sickness bore only bad memories for Addison. Knowing her, the fact that she hadn't really been sick since (hangovers and the occasional cold not counting as sickness), was down to her sheer force of will.

Unfortunately, viruses are not sympathetic to such things, and Addison awoke the morning following her date with Mark feeling lousy as Hell. Her throat was raw and scratchy, her nose was clogged, and her head pounded with an awful headache (and not even a 'Karev-is-my-intern-today' headache, but a really dreadful 'an-inconsiderate-little-man-is-tap-dancing-in-my-head-while-wearing-heels' kind of headache).

Everybody had their flaws. Addison was stubborn as Hell. She hadn't had a sick day since getting her M.D., and she'd be damned if she took one now.

"Good morning, sunshine," Amelia greeted her cheerily as Addison joined her friends at the kitchen table, pale and bleary-eyed yet still dressed in one of her usual designer ensembles. "You look like shit."

"Well aren't you feeling eloquent today?" Addison replied, stealing a slice of Callie's toast and ignoring the resulting indignant 'Hey!'

"Aw, did Markie give you Mono?" Amelia teased.

She was unaffected by Addison's death glare boring into her skull, which was frankly fairly disappointing.

"Serves you right," Callie told her. "This is karma for every time you've laughed at us when we're sick."

"You're annoying sick people. You lay around the house all day complaining that you feel crappy but you still don't wear a coat going outside next time it snows."

"Because you were so responsible yesterday, wearing a coat and immediately changing out of your wet clothes the second you got inside."

"Shut up. Where's Derek?"

"He has a breakfast date with an intern. The-the blonde one, with the..." Amelia frowned in thought.

"Ellis Grey's daughter," Callie supplied.

"Grey! That's it! I nearly had it."

"At least someone gets a nice start to their day."

From then on, Addison's day only seemed to worsen. One of her induced deliveries haemorrhaged unexpectedly during birth, and Addison had to move back all her other appointments in order to fix her. Mrs. Bianchi, the two o'clock with hyperemesis gravidarum moved to half past three, ended up vomiting on her. The interns were useless and the residents are lazy. Chamberlain was moody, dumping huge piles of paperwork on Addison out of what she swore is spite.

She was scowling at the OR board, nose pink and scrub top drenched in Lacey Randall's amniotic fluid, when Mark stopped by beside her. He looked better off than her, although he did sneeze before he opened his mouth and sound rather raspy when he spoke.

"Miss me, Red?" he asked. He was close. She could feel his breath on the nape of her neck, which was exposed by her tied-up hair.

"Take a step away, Sloan," she replied. "It's bad enough that you've given me the flu already. The last thing I need is another sick person infecting me."

"So you decided to go to a hospital? Come on, Red," he pulled her closer into his embrace. "Go home. You'll infect your patients, and you don't look so good."

"My patients will suffer far more if I leave them to the crappy interns and residents of this hospital. And Chamberlain will kill me."

He shook his head in exasperation but didn't argue, instead staying quiet.

"Addison?" he asked a few minutes later.

"Hm?"

"Did you spill your coffee or something?"

"That's just amniotic fluid."

She knew he pulled a somewhat disgusted face despite being unable to see it.

"I have a hysterectomy and a salpingo-oopherectomy in half an hour that you're going to make me late for," she informed him a few minutes after that.

"You have plenty of time."

"I still need to shower and change."

"I can come with you and help?"

She laughed, shaking her head.

"Sorry, not enough time," she told him. "And you're sick."

"So are you. You're hot."

"I know I am."

"No, I mean hot as in temperature."

She sighed heavily, and he knew not to push the matter.

There was a familiar, obnoxious beeping and both of them reached for their pagers.

"It's me," she said. "911. Gotta go." She hoped the Brady Baby, her 911, didn't need surgery, because all this day seemed to do was get longer and she couldn't push yet more of her appointments back.

He blew her a kiss and winked as she left, the former of which was so unlike him it caused her to smile and blow a kiss back.

The Brady Baby required a chest tube but not surgery, and she left him in what she hoped were Stevens' capable hands.

He was there in the gallery when she glanced up during surgery, and although he was in surgery himself by the time she got out, a sour-looking nurse handed her a lily and a container of still warm chicken noodle soup from Dr. Sloan.

 **JustAnotherIntern14** **–** **thanks, I'm flattered. I'd also love a Grey's where Maddison is real and Mark and Addison are still on the show. :)  
Guest (1) - gracias de nuevo!  
Patsy – yay, it posted this time! I'm glad you're looking forward to more.  
Gale123: and voila, here is the update itself.**


	5. Chapter 5: Jolene

**Guys, she updated! It's a miracle! Honestly, I'm sorry. I don't even have an excuse this time. I'm just really bad at updating, and I'm sorry because it's not like this even a particular good story or chapter anyway. I'm hoping I'll be able to update faster now that I've gotten past this chapter.**

 **Unchained Melody**

 **Chapter 5: Jolene**

The idly chatting nurses at the front desk couldn't have looked more bored unless they were on sedative medication. A steady downpour of rain beat down outside, pattering against the window. Somewhere, a TV blared loudly.

Looking around at all this, fiddling nervously with the rings on her left finger, Lexie wondered why Mark would choose this hospital – out of the many which were perfectly willing to employ him – when it was so dull, so ordinary when compared to Mt. Sinai. Although she didn't work there yet herself (she'd been planning to do so one day, but she supposed she couldn't be sure about that now), Lexie had spent quite a lot of time at Mt. Sinai over the years, and she'd found the steady bustle of people, the constant influx of new emergencies every five minutes, and general demeanour of the hospital to be something enthralling.

In comparison to Mt. Sinai, Seattle Grace Hospital paled considerably.

Of course, Lexie had read up on Seattle Grace when she found out that was where Mark was. She knew that it was a Level 1 trauma center, and had recently made it into the top ten hospitals in North America. Several internationally ranked surgeons worked there, or had at some point.

But there were no bright, flashing lights. No sultry blondes with pouty pink lips and lots of eye makeup. This place wasn't fast-paced, or flashy, or exciting. It wasn't Mark.

This wasn't New York. Or Las Vegas. Or California, even.

The implications of that scared Lexie. Because they were all based off one of two possibilities:

1\. Mark had somehow managed to settle down in a place like this without Lexie. He had become a better man without her – a different Mark to the one she'd known – and now he didn't need her.

2\. Mark had turned into this man while she'd still been married to him, and she hadn't noticed. (And that scared Lexie. Because, most of all, what did that say about her?)

However, ultimately, Mark was here – in Seattle – whether Lexie found it surprising or not. And thinking and stressing about it wasn't going to benefit her, or the baby, in any way. So she walked right up to the front desk, and then came to a stop before the nurse stood at the front of it, who didn't look busy at all.

Lexie cleared her throat. The nurse continued filing her nails, showing Lexie not even the slightest acknowledgement.

"Um, hi," Lexie said, fake-smiling in a way that felt very forced and so probably looked it, too. "Excuse me?"

The nurse pursed her lips and gave Lexie a very judgemental look before deliberately looking away and ignoring her again.

"Sorry," said the only male nurse currently present, jumping in. "Becky just got back to work from leave and she's very sulky right now. It doesn't help that it's a quiet day at the hospital today, so something big is going to happen."

"Oh, eff you Tyler," Becky the nurse said. Tyler cracked a grin.

"Anyway," he continued. "How can I help you?"

"Uh, I'm looking for Dr. Sloan?" Lexie said. "As in, Mark Sloan. The plastic surgeon, ENT." She sensed the baby kick a little against her stomach, and felt the corners of her lips twitch into a small smile.

Tyler caught her smile, and a bit of a knowing look crossed his face; he probably thought Lexie was just some patient or something who'd gotten a crush on Mark. "Do you have an appointment with Dr. Sloan?" he asked. Becky the nurse rolled her eyes at him.

"Well," Lexie said. "I've been hoping I won't really need one. I'm his wife, you see. Lexie Sloan?"

Tyler choked on something. Becky the nurse fell off her chair. Somebody dropped something. "McSteamy has a wife?" Becky said in a hushed, gossipy kind of voice. "Seriously?"

"Uh, Dr. Sloan has finished his shift for today," Tyler informed her, a bit of a strange expression Lexie couldn't recognise on his face. "His last surgery was a few hours ago. But he hangs out at the NICU a lot, if you wanna check that out."

Lexie laughed. She felt the baby wriggling around inside her and imagined that she, too, was laughing. Mark was not one to hang out at the NICU. He never had been to begin with.

But Tyler wasn't laughing. And neither was Becky. THey were actually looking at her like she was a little crazy. "Wait," Lexie said. "You're serious?"

"Uh, yeah," Becky said in a very 'duh' kind of voice. "What's so funny about it?"

"Nothing," Lexie said, although it very much was something, because Mark didn't hang out at the NICU. He didn't go cuckoo over babies – or, at least, she didn't think he did, given she didn't think he'd actually interacted with any infants outside of surgery during the entirety of their relationship. "Could you point me in the right direction, please? To the NICU, that is."

"It's on the fifth floor," Tyler told her. "You turn left at the elevator and then left again at the turn by the private birthing suites. It's kind of hard to miss. There are signs and stuff, you know."

She thanked Tyler and nodded at Becky before leaving. Then, she got as far as the first left on the fifth floor before she got lost – she didn't know how it happened, given she remembered Tyler's instructions perfectly, but she found this hospital very confusing, and she was actually a little dizzy.

This was how, somewhat ironically, Lexie found herself behind the large plexiglass window of the hospital nursery, surveying row after row of rosy-cheeked, wide-eyed babies in Perspex cots.

She found her hands once more drifting to rest on her burgeoning stomach, where the thin fabric of her t-shirt stretched tightly against her prominent bump, and smiling as she rubbed that spot on her right side where the baby liked to kick so much.

In just one month, one of those rosy-cheeked, wide-eyes babies could be hers. Her and Mark's. She could imagine already the way that its eye-lashes would flutter against soft baby cheeks, the way it would poke a little pink tongue out from behind little pink lips, the way that little, laminated paper bracelet reading 'Baby Sloan' would fall against one of its hands.

Lexie Grey hadn't ever really wanted kids. Kids were loud and sticky and, oftentimes, kind of dumb. While some little girls, like Lexie's sister Molly, had always had that dream of playing mommy to two-point-five clingy little brats, Lexie had always wanted to be a doctor; a baby could only get in the way of that. When Mark had bought up the subject of kids maybe a year or so back, she had told him something along those lines, and it was never really mentioned again.

But Lexie, somehow, wanted a baby now that she had one developing inside her. She wanted this baby. She loved this baby.

And she was sure Mark would want it – love it – too, even if they didn't necessarily share the same genetic material. Because, deep down, that was who he was.

* * *

A little time had passed and Lexie was just about to leave in search of her husband again when she bumped into someone, managing to stay upright herself by grabbing a hold of the wall but sending the person she'd bumped into crashing onto the ground with the clatter of falling charts.

Peering over her stomach, Lexie managed to catch sight of the woman on the ground. She had red hair piled up on top of her head, and was wearing scrubs; presumably she was either a doctor or a nurse, although judging by the pager and her hospital ID, Lexie would have guessed she was a doctor. A closer glance, while the other woman rubbed the small bruise forming on her forehead and both of them apologised, confirmed this in informing Lexie of the fact that this was Dr. A. A. F. Montgomery and she was an OBGYN and neonatal surgeon.

"I am _so_ sorry," Lexie said, offering Dr. Montgomery a hand she used to pull herself up. "I wasn't looking where I was going and-"

"It's fine, honestly," Dr. Montgomery said, smiling. "If anything, that was my fault. I should have been looking where I was going. My responsibility, as the one who works here."

She looked nice – or maybe Lexie was just in a good mood, because the baby was suddenly kicking up a huge storm inside her – so she smiled back and said, "Well, either way, it's nice to meet you, Dr. Montgomery. I'm Lexie."

"Call me Addison," Dr. Montgomery said. "It's a pleasure. How far along are you?"

"Seven months," Lexie announced proudly. _God, that means six months now without Mark._ "Just two more left to go."

"Do you know whether it's a boy or a girl?"

"Not really, but I'm getting girl vibes, you know? I'd probably be better with a girl. And I've got lots of name ideas, for one of those. Pearl is my favourite I think, but I also like Emma and Ellie a lot. Or maybe even Margaret. Or Susannah. That's pretty, and it would be a cute tribute to my mother."

"Those are lovely names."

"Do you have any kids?" Lexie asked curiously.

Addison laughed. "Uh, no, not me, I don't have any kids," she said. "I'm not sure I'm cut out to be a mother. Although, you know, I always thought Ella would be pretty, for a girl."

 _Ella_.

 _Ella Grey._

 _Ella_ _Sloan_.

Ella Bennet.

She liked that. She liked that a lot. She could see Mark, see Mark with this adorable little girl called Ella. And it was amazing to imagine, because it looked – it felt – so right.

Mark and Ella.

Mark, Lexie, and Ella.

 _Mark and Ella._

"Oh, _wow_ ," Lexie breathed. " _That_ , that is a _nice_ name. I really like that name."

Addison laughed again. Lexie supposed she must have been acting in a way the other woman found quite amusing. "Well, it's not that far off from Emma and Ellie, really," Addison said. "We actually have an Ella in the nursery at the moment. She's adorable, but most of the babies are, really."

Lexie smiled, but it was a bit of a watery smile – at any rate, it felt like one – and then, next thing she knew, the walls were spinning and she was collapsing.

* * *

The diagnosis Addison eventually came up with was placenta previa. Not so serious that it required bedrest, in fact mild enough that with any luck it might go away completely in the remaining few weeks of the pregnancy.

Lexie was still unconscious by the time Addison had completed the evaluation – although now she was stable, she was mildly sedated because she woke up earlier from some horrible kind of nightmare and nearly hit a nurse in her fright – so she decided she had enough time to go grab a coffee and maybe meet up with Callie and Amelia.

It just so happened that she bumped into that intern Derek had being seeing lately – Meredith, maybe, or Millicent (she forgets) – as she exited the room. "Grey," she said, quite pleasantly in her opinion. "Have you got those medical files for Alexandra Sloan from New York?"

"Yes, Dr. Montgomery," Grey said. "A Dr. Anderson from Beth Israel Hospital is having them faxed over right now. Nurse Debbie said she'd page you once they were entirely faxed. It doesn't look like Miss Sloan has any underlying conditions, though, and what we've heard from her OB indicates that her pregnancy has been pretty textbook so far."

"I see," Addison replied, glancing down at the lab results she was carrying, which indicated pretty much the same except maybe a slight level of dehydration (and they were administering fluids, so that wasn't going to be a problem for much longer). "Have you been in touch with her emergency contact, then?"

Grey looked confused, for a moment there. "Oh," she said making those big, doe eyes. "I thought he'd know by now. It says on her documents that Dr. Mark Sloan is her emergency contact – the one who works here, which makes sense because they have the same surname and all… I thought he'd already know by now. Would you like for me to go tell him now?"

"It's…fine, Grey," Addison said. "I'll do it myself, I was heading over to plastics anyway."

She wondered if Mark had a sister he didn't tell her about. There didn't seem to be much of a family resemblance between him and this woman. Maybe a sister in-law then. Or a half-sister. Or a stepsister. Maybe even a daughter – Lexie certainly seemed young enough for that to be possible.

She found Mark easily, talking with one of the oncology attendings about a case. He spotted her over the attending's shoulder, and smiled. She waited for the two of them to finish talking.

For some reason, she found herself tapping her foot nervously. She trusted Mark - they'd known each other for a good six months, of course she did – but there was a part of her which didn't like all this; she had a bad feeling.

"Hey, Red," Mark greeted her as he finished talking and he and the oncology attending exchanged goodbyes. "You wanna go get coffee or something? I have an hour until my rhinoplasty, and you're free until six, right?"

"Actually, I have a case now," she told him vaguely. "Mark, do you have a sister or something? Because, I have this patient – an Alexandra Sloan, seven months pregnant – and you're listed as her emergency contact."

He was silent for what felt like a very long time. His jaw was clenched, and he turned a little pale. He looked a little sick, a little angry.

Finally, he cleared his throat and quietly stated, "That's my wife, Addie."

She didn't register much, after that. _How can you react to something like that? How does somebody keep their wife a secret from the woman who loves him for six months?_

Addison, however, was raised a WASP. She knew how to be cold and apathetic until she found someplace private she was allowed to cry.

"I see," she replied, voice frosty. "Well, I'm sure Dr. Grey will update you on your wife's condition if you'll just page her, Dr. Sloan. Excuse me."

She left, ignoring Mark's sharp cry of _Addison!_ because he didn't deserve to explain. He didn't need to explain. _You don't keep that kind of secret for so long – you just don't._

He watched her go, eyes red and brimming with unshed tears which threatened to spill onto his reddened face, knowing better than to follow her but being unable to focus on anything more than how this hurt far more than losing Lexie – or anything else, for that matter – ever did.

 **How did I do? Was it okay? I thought it was kind of okay, although there may be quite a few grammar/spelling mistakes, etc. There wasn't much medicine in this chapter. Actually, there wasn't much in this chapter in general. I wanted to focus on Lexie and the baby and how that may change everything. Also, help with Lexie? At first I was certain she'd be Pearl, because of reasons I can't reveal correlating to future chapters, or maybe eventually Margaret. But now I really like the idea of her using the name Ella, because of the irony and the tiny bit of pain it could cause Addison for a little extra drama… so, yeah, feedback on that could be a little useful, I guess.**

 **Also, because I'm not sure if I made it clear, the baby is definitely Sam's and not Mark's.**

 **GreysAnatomyPrettyLittleLiars - I'm glad you're excited to see more! Although, again, I'm sorry it took so long. :)**

 **Irony-FLD – thank you, I'm flattered! The only thing worse than how we got so little Maddison on the show when they were clearly so amazing is that they didn't end up living happily ever after together! I'm hoping to fix that.**

 **Patsy – I think your reviews are showing up and you just aren't seeing it on your own device? If not, I think there may be another reviewer who goes by Patsy, although that seems less likely. Thank you, and I'm glad you liked the idea of jumping ahead! Sorry I kept you waiting so long for more. :)**

 **Patsy (2?) – I didn't even realise that I last updated in like, January until I saw your review; oh my god, I'm a horrible person and I'm even worse at reviewing than I thought. Thanks, and I hope you had Happy New Year too. :)**

 **SadlyOutWittedUnicorn – thank you! I'm glad you like it.**


	6. Chapter 6: I Write Sins Not Tragedies

**I updated! Yay! The title of this chapter is entirely based on like, one line mentioned somewhere near the end of it, but I couldn't help myself and I thought it kinda sorta fit. I'm fairly sure I messed up all the math about Lexie's due date and stuff mentioned it further on in the chapter, but really, who cares? There have been worse timeline mistakes. I was going to write something in this A/N but then I forgot it, and now I have that annoying niggling feeling about forgetting it in my head. Anyway, enjoy!**

 **Unchained Melody**

 **Chapter 6: I Write Sins Not Tragedies**

There was a frosty look of contempt painted onto Mark's face as he sat by his wife's bedside and watched her sleep. He'd never been one to watch women sleep, because there was little point in it except that it was creepy – besides, it was hard to find the tiny bit of drool leaking from Lexie's mouth, or the quiet rumble of her breaths as she slept (vaguely reminiscent of but too quiet for snoring) cute or endearing.

However, it was Lexie's stomach rather than Lexie herself that Mark was watching. His subscriptions to medical journals were still listed under his apartment in New York, and hospital tabloids focusing on who's dating who and why he cheated on her with her sister had proven surprisingly boring even though Mark had always held a love of gossip. Thus, he had little to do except twiddle his thumbs, and his gaze was naturally drawn to the newest change to his wife's body, despite the bad blood between them.

It was Sam's baby. Mark knew this because if it were his baby, Lexie would have come here sooner. She probably only came here now to break it off with him, or maybe settle divorce proceedings. She probably wouldn't stay long either, because she had to go back to school – unless, worst-case scenario, she stayed here in Seattle so her parents could help her with the baby; she'd mentioned her parents lived here in passing, but nobody from either of their families attended Mark and Lexie's Vegas wedding. Mark still hadn't met them, in fact. He didn't know much about them at all, although he'd met Lexie's sister Molly a few times in passing.

He wondered idly whether the baby was a boy or a girl. _Lexie better hope for a boy,_ some petty side of Mark thought, _because if it's a girl she'll probably be a whore just like her mother._ He probably would have felt bad if he'd said it aloud, but thinking it made him feel none the worse.

And somehow, thinking about this – about babies – led to Mark thinking about Addison. Logically, it was probably because Addison's job was almost completely centred around babies, but he felt like the correlations made in his brain to get him there were based around a hundred other reasons.

A baby with Addison, he thought, would be especially great right now. Things would probably be a whole lot easier for him right now if it were Addison pregnant instead of Lexie. He could divorce Lexie and stay with Addison and their perfect, red-haired, blue-eyed baby. Although a boy would be nice, in his mind what he saw is a girl… _Elle_ , maybe, or something like that.

"Mark? You're here?"

While Mark had been thinking of babies and all that girly stuff (ignoring key flaws in his thoughts such as that Addison wasn't talking to him, Addison currently hated him, and Lexie's baby _could_ be his even if he did hate the idea of it), Lexie had managed to sit up and was now looking at him through red eyes, an arm curled protectively around her pregnant stomach. The sedatives they gave her a while ago, already watered down, must have worn off.

"You're pregnant," he said gruffly, not in the mood to be anything but blunt and direct.

Lexie smiled nervously. "Uh, yeah," she said, sounding awkward and maybe even scared. "It's not like I have a tapeworm or anything. I'm seven months along."

It was probably meant as a joke – the tapeworm part – but Lexie was never a comic and Mark wasn't going to humour her this time so he didn't laugh, didn't crack a smile. He cut straight to the chase, because the question he was about to ask was one of the very few reasons as to why he was still hanging around here and not trying to explain himself to Addison.

"Is it my baby?" Mark asked.

* * *

During the remaining few hours of her shift, a repeating mantra of _don'tcrydon'tcrydon'tcry_ seemed to fill her head. Crying, she had learnt at a young age, meant weakness, it meant hurt; if they couldn't see you crying, a person couldn't have the satisfaction of knowing they'd caused you pain.

So Addison took all her feelings – those horrible, stifling feelings of betrayal and anger and hurt – and stuffed them all in a tiny, little box in the back of her head. And then she worked, because work provided many distractions and little hurt. She performed ultrasounds and filled out forms and ordered around interns, and she tried to feel as normal as possible because she wasn't supposed to feel anything other than that; she'd only known Mark for six months, probably a fraction of how long his wife had known him, and she wasn't supposed to feel miserable just because some no-good low-life of a man had revealed his true nature.

With her next surgery, the one at six o'clock, marking the end of her day, Addison was just about to leave the NICU in order to prepare for surgery. She was finishing up evening rounds by spending some time with little Leah Knowles – born at 28 weeks, mother coded on the table, father out of the picture – when she jumped upon feeling somebody place their hand on her shoulder.

Remaining mindful of the fact that Leah's tiny hand was still wrapped around her finger, Addison spun half-way around so she could see who was bothering her, and found herself face to face with Mark. Lip-level thanks to her new heels, which would have been a good thing earlier today but now only made her resentful.

"Dr. Sloan," Addison said, courteous because he was still her colleague and she had always prided herself on being able to behave professionally, but cold because this man was still a major asshole and his lips were way too enticing for that right now. She carefully prised her finger out of Leah's grip, and stepped away from Mark to avoid the temptation of kissing him.

"Red. Addie," Mark said as he stepped closer and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, the pad of his thumb skating along the line of her jaw on the way back. "I'm sorry, baby. So, so sorry."

She wanted to yell at him. Yell and shout at him and throw things. But the last thing she needed was to embarrass herself further by losing yet more of her dignity, so instead she stuck her chin in the air and pulled her face out of his hands' gentle cradle. She wasn't just some cheap mistress he could lie to like this. "If this is about your _wife_ , Dr. Sloan," she said, "I think you'll want to know that although her case has been passed on to Dr. Blythe as per request, I find no indicators as to why we shouldn't be able to discharge her tomorrow. Now _goodbye_."

She tried to leave, but he caught her by the elbow and pulled her closer. He still smelt like leather and cologne, and his voice was low and husky, and all that only made it harder to leave.

" _Red_ ," he repeated, an urgency in his tone. "Please don't leave me." His voice cracked as he said it. "Please."

She stopped trying to tug herself away from him, stepped closer, and looked deep into his eyes. "I never want to see you again, Mark Sloan," she hissed in his face. " _Go back to your wife and child._ "

She walked away, heels click-clacking against the floor, blinking back her tears and thinking of the way his had been running down his face – Mark didn't cry a lot, so it was hard to.

If there was anything Addison was good at, besides surgery, it was being a cold-blooded bitch.

Her surgery went swimmingly; no complications, completely textbook. She reassured the patient's worried husband, signed off on the chart, and left the hospital with a heavy heart and, unsurprisingly, none of the high that usually accompanied cutting.

At home, the lights were off and the low sound of the TV was audible. She found Amelia and Callie sprawled out over the couch with a bowl of popcorn, making fun of the models on _Top Model_. It was a familiar picture, and for a second it almost bought a smile to her face.

"Hey!" Callie greeted her cheerfully with a full mouth as Addison dumped her purse on the floor and grabbed the biggest bottle of wine she could see. "I thought you and Mark had plans."

"The plans," Addison said with what she was sure must be a grim face, "are cancelled."

"Why?" Amelia asked. "Is he working late, or something?" They'd had the night shift last night, so they weren't at the hospital and thus probably hadn't heard yet.

"No," Addison said sourly. "He's just an ass."

Then, before either Callie or Amelia could say anything else, she put the bottle of wine back down and almost ran – she was glad she'd already taken her heels off - to the toilet, where she promptly threw up.

Today was _really_ not her day.

"You drunk already?" Amelia drawled as she entered the room, closely followed by Callie.

"Shut up," Addison croaked, flushing the toilet and leaning back against the cool wallpaper of the bathroom wall. Callie sat herself down beside her, putting an arm around Addison's shoulder.

Although she was perfectly sober, Addison was willing to bet her eyes were pretty bloodshot right now. She probably looked a mess.

"Addie, what's wrong?" Callie asked. She looked worried.

There was little Addison wanted to do more than tell her the whole story, and talk crap about Mark, and then cry herself to sleep. But that wouldn't exactly be very strong, would it? Bizzy would be disgusted. Especially given Addison wasn't even alone right now.

So she took a deep breath, so her voice wouldn't catch when she spoke, and said as calmly as she could, "Mark is married. His wife is called Alexandra Sloan - she's roughly some seven months pregnant, and is suffering placenta previa. Her blood type is A positive. She's, if I remember correctly, twenty-three years old, and is a med. school student at Harvard. I don't know how that worked out, given Mark lived in New York. Then again, for all I know, that was also a lie."

"You know a lot about her," Amelia stated from where she was still stood in the doorway, after which she tossed Addison a bottle of vodka she must have grabbed earlier.

Addison caught it. With no glasses in sight, and only so much WASPy dignity she could show at once, Addison just drank it straight from the bottle. Her first swig from the bottle was long, as though it was water and she'd just spent three months in the desert without it.

When she finally set the bottle back down, at least a quarter of its contents – although it looked closer to half – was gone. There weren't all that many good things Addison could say about her family, but one was that the Montgomeries had always had a high tolerance for alcohol.

"She was my patient," Addison told her friends. "Briefly. That's how I found out about her. Apparently, Mark didn't care enough to share the truth with me."

"Oh, Addie," Callie said sympathetically. "You wanna talk about it?"

She blinked back tears, and found herself actually sticking her bottom lip out in what may have been a pout (God, that was pathetic, isn't it? She'd become pathetic!) "No," she mumbled. "Just get me drunk. Please? I just… need to forget. For a little while. I'll be okay, I promise."

* * *

The hospital room was quiet, little noise other than the gentle bleeping and whirring of machines, and the low murmur of the TV.

Dr. Sloan had fallen asleep in the corner, in the chair he dragged away from his wife's bedside. He had been pouting all afternoon and now, even in his slumber, he continued to pout. Like a puppy. Although really, all this was his fault for not telling anybody about his wife. Even if she did cheat on him, which was only a rumour for now, but rumours usually held some degree of truth, however tiny.

Dr. Sloan's wife, however, was not asleep.

If you weren't looking carefully, as Meredith was, you would not notice this, because Dr. Sloan's wife was lying back in her hospital bed and looking very still. Thankfully, as you could tell from her heart monitor and the slight rise and fall of her chest, as well as her blinking every few seconds, she was not dead.

Dr. Sloan's wife must have been perceptive, or maybe she could feel Meredith staring, because she sat up a little. "Can I help you?" she asked, but not in a rude way. In that almost-annoying, really sweet kind of way. She was the kind of person you'd expect to eat an omelette you made her even if she was lactose intolerant, just because she didn't want to hurt your feelings.

She was very bright. And shiny. Especially for somebody wrapped up in this kind of mess.

"I'm, uh, Meredith," Meredith introduced herself, before correcting herself with, "Dr. Grey."

"Grey?" Dr. Sloan's wife said. She smiled. "That's funny. That was my maiden name, you see."

Meredith's arm twitched. She didn't like the sound of that. Sure, Grey was a reasonably common surname, but George pointed out just a few minutes ago how similar she and Dr. Sloan's wife – _Alexandra_ , if Meredith remembered correctly – were, and her father had been at the hospital recently when her half-sister Molly was admitted (pregnant with baby Laura, who had a diaphragmatic hernia), and he'd said very proudly that he had another daughter attending Harvard, and lo-and-behold, Nurse Rachel said that Dr. Sloan's wife was a Harvard student.

"Yeah, funny," Meredith echoed, sounding hollow even to her own ears.

She was trying to be nice, she really was. It was just that Dr. Sloan's wife- Meredith was on Dr. Montgomery's service today, and she was the one put in charge of contacting Dr. Sloan's wife's emergency contact.

And while Dr. Sloan was her first emergency contact, the back-up was a Mr. Thatcher Grey, and under his name was that of Susan, with the same surname.

That could be a coincidence. But unfortunately, little seemed to be coincidence for Meredith lately. And she had come to learn that Seattle Grace Hospital was a place where Murphy's law very much applied.

"I still sometimes forget," Dr. Sloan's wife continued to talk, in a nervous kind of babble. "That I'm Sloan now. I'll start to say that I'm Lexie Grey and I'll have to correct myself." _She called herself Lexie? How… unbelievably… to avoid using mean adjectives, bright and shiny._ "Which can be embarrassing, to say the least, because who doesn't know their own name? And-"

"I'm… the intern on your case," Meredith said, interrupting her. She twisted a lock of her hair nervously. "And, uh, I was going through your emergency contacts and… it says Thatcher Grey, on there. And, I'm assuming Thatcher Grey is your father-" although she would be so, so unbelievably grateful if 'Lexie's' Thatcher Grey was some distant or maybe disowned uncle "- except… well, my dad is Thatcher Grey, too?"

She was about to continue talking but she stopped herself. Nervous babbling could _not_ be a family trait. There would be no family traits. Because this was not Meredith's sister, this was a coincidence.

"Well…" Lexie said. "That depends. I do have a half-sister I never met. And my Dad _was_ married once before he married my mother. But the woman my Dad used to be married to was called Ellis Grey and that's not your-"

Meredith didn't need to say anything. Lexie seemed to be able to read it in her face before she could.

"Oh," Lexie said, quietly.

They both stared at each other for a moment, quiet.

"Hi," Lexie finally said in that same tiny voice – _was that just her normal voice?_ "My name is Alexandra Caroline Grey. Lexie. Meredith Grey, I'm your sister."

Meredith turned around on her heel and hastily fled the room.

* * *

There was a hammering on the front door which awoke Addison, who'd fallen asleep on the couch in an uncomfortable position and awoke that way with a headache and a crick in her neck. She must have gotten pretty blackout drunk – she thought this partly because she was actually feeling hungover, and she rarely felt hungover, and also because she couldn't remember exactly what had happened towards the end of the night when she'd had the wonderful decision to go to sleep on the couch in an uncomfortable position.

She opened the door, not having seen herself in the mirror but knowing yesterday's makeup was probably a mess and her hair must look awful, and came face to face with Mark. She tried to slam it in his face, but he managed to wedge his foot into the doorway and stop it before it could close. He winced noticeably as the door, which she'd attempted to slam with quite a bit of force, hit his foot, but he didn't remove it. He knew she would slam the door again once he did.

"Mark, go away," she said in a tired voice. She was tired of this now. She was tired of him.

Instead, he slipped his hand in through the doorway as well and gently tugged at a lock of her hair. "You haven't straightened your hair today," he remarked. It hadn't been enough time since she last did for it to have gone back to its naturally curly state, but she'd have wagered it was at least wavy by now.

"No, I haven't," she agreed, finally finding the strength within herself to sound cold – like ice, strong and powerful – instead of tired, which was admittedly all she felt now, apart from 'hurting' and 'heartbroken' which sounded even more pathetic.

"I like it this way," Mark told her. "It's nice."

There was no way he meant that. It did _not_ make her blush a tiny, little bit because Mark was in a tiny, little box in her head and it most certainly did not make her feel butterflies in her stomach.

"You like bedhead?" She asked him cryptically, one eyebrow raised. "Really."

He smiled. Didn't say anything in reply – no smart comment, no innuendo – just that perfect lopsided smile which made her weak in the knees.

Right now it made her want to punch him in the face.

"What do you want Mark?" she asked him.

"I want to _talk to you_ , Red," he said. "I want to explain, to- to tell you what happened. _She_ cheated on _me_ , Addie! She cheated on me! With my _best_ friend!"

A part of her felt sorry for him. It wasn't that she didn't feel sorry for him, empathise or understand. It was just that he cheated, too. And he made her an accomplice in that. He made her the dirty mistress.

"You didn't come here to kiss and make up," she told him. "Why did you really come here, Mark?"

He sighed, his breath turning to mist in the frosty weather. "Lexie's pregnant," he announced.

She couldn't deny that it hurt, to find out that he really did have other reasons for coming to her this morning. But they were only together six months, she reminded herself. Not something big like ten, eleven years.

"I already know that," she told him, though, instead of voicing her feelings (because there would be no point in that, really - she'd made it clear she didn't want to reconcile with him, after all). "I was her doctor, remember?"

"Lexie's pregnant," Mark said, "and she says the baby is mine. But I don't think it's mine. I don't want it to be mine, bad as that may sound. You treated her… you know how far along she is, where that would put conception at?"

"Lexie's seven months pregnant," Addison told him. "That's thirty-three weeks, now. That puts her due date on the 24th February. It would put conception at…" she does some quick math in her head, "somewhere in mid-May, give or take a few days around the 20th."

"You worked that out pretty fast," Mark said, sounding fairly impressed.

"Yeah, well, I was a mathlete in high school," she said. "Is that everything?"

"I don't think it's mine," Mark said. "The baby. I'm pretty sure I was at a conference in New Jersey around the 20th."

"It's not my problem, and I don't care," she replied, taking the wounded look in his face as an opportunity to finally close the goddamn door and ignoring the resulting feeling of guilt.

 _Would it be different?_ She wondered. _If Lexie wasn't pregnant, if the baby wasn't his?_

It didn't matter. She refused to be the dirty mistress. Her whole childhood was based around the comings and goings of dirty mistresses in the forms of tennis instructors and French tutors and nannies and governesses until her mother finally made a good decision and put down the glass of martini always in her hand to arrange a mostly male staff.

She wouldn't do that to the poor baby girl Lexie was carrying. She wouldn't do that to _Lexie_. Both of them deserved better than that. Addison deserved better than that.

She just hoped that Lexie didn't call the baby Ella, in the end. She hadn't minded before, but now… there was a part of her which, just a few weeks ago before all this chaos occurred, was somewhat comfortable with the dream she sometimes had, of the dream where she and Mark sat in their garden and watched a little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes run around pretending to be a fairy. A little girl named _Ella_.

Ella Sloan always did have a very nice ring to it, but when she thought about it, and tried to cheer herself up, she decided that Ella Montgomery probably sounded a whole lot better.

 **Apologies for any mistakes I made regarding the tense this was written in. I somehow managed to write the whole thing in present tense, only to realise that I've written the story so far in the past tense.**

 **TeddyBearsLover27 - you're welcome! The father of Lexie's baby being Sam was never really a question, for me, because whilst Mark being the father could be a good plot twist, it would mean Mark had responsibilities and Mark had to play the Daddy and- you know, actually, this is a pretty good opportunity to write deadbeat Dad Mark. That would be interesting, but then would Addison take him back after that?... so, uh, no, yeah, Sam is definitely the baby's father. Given so many people are against it, I guess I won't call the baby Ella :) although part of me is still considering Emma or Emily or Emilia. I don't see how Maddison can't be someone's OTP with how amazing they are, and it's so sad there aren't nearly as many stories for them as there are for MerDer or (ugh) Slexie or anything… anyway, thanks for reviewing!**

 **JustAnotherIntern14 - I'm not exactly sure how to write WASPy Addison's actual dialogue, so thanks! I've always thought that, as bad a mother as she was, Bizzy did have a big impact on Addison and her personality and life and stuff, so I'm trying to portray that. I suppose I won't be naming the baby Ella (and I guess I do say this a little reluctantly) but doing so would put a bit of a flaw into something else for a ridiculously faraway future chapter, so that makes sense. Anyway, thanks for reviewing!**

 **Hushedgreylily – I know, wouldn't the twisted irony of Lexie's baby being a girl called Ella be great? I love twisted irony. Sadly, the majority do seem to disagree and I do understand that – Ella has almost always been a strictly Maddison name. I find myself somehow managing to write Lexie sympathetically, and I honestly don't know why because I've held a deep hatred of her ever since she made Slexie a thing (and maybe even before that) despite having originally almost liked her a little (although I always did think she was a bit of a cliché, with the whole 'secret half-sister' thing), but I don't really want to outright slander her character because that isn't really how she is. Thanks for your review!**

 **Pasty – the review problem has been corrected! Yay! Lexie will inevitably become caught up in her lies eventually anyway, when the baby pops out looking like a mini-Sam. There'll be more of Meredith's reaction later – I was planning to fit in some MerDer about it this chapter, but it slipped my mind and I don't really want to add it now because it would feel hurried. Given nobody likes the idea of Ella Grey-Sloan and Margaret might be a bit weird what with Maggie being yet another half-sister, I think I may just go with Susannah Pearl, although I'm almost definitely going to end up shortening it to some kind of nickname. Thanks! :)**

 **Irony-FLD - I'm glad you love this chapter! I could not have Mark interact with Addison somehow, in the end. I'm hoping to have some b*tchy Addison next chapter, actually… but anyway, I'm glad you like this so much and thanks for the review!**

 **Kae – you're welcome! Thank you! I'm glad you love this! Given the amount of complaints I've received about it, I'm almost definitely not going to name Lexie's baby Ella. And the Possible Eventual Maddison Baby, well…. I have plans. That's about all I can say. Except maybe that you'll hate me or you'll love me or you'll hate and love me. Thank you, thank you for the review!**

 **Wow, I really do use lots of exclamation marks in these review reply thingies, don't I? Anyway, thank you everybody for the reviews – seriously, they make me swoon. They're great. You're great. Even the non-reviewers are amazing.**


	7. Chapter 7: Cake

**Wooh! Update! And it hasn't even been six months since the last one! Yay! By now, my titles are just random songs that I like listening to. This one was inspired by the fact that I really want cake. But I think it fits, although when I see it I think of the band Cake rather than the song. And, as I've mentioned Molly and her baby in this story even though they only appear in season three, I have sufficiently messed up this story. But oh well. This was supposed to be a 'the calm before the storm' sort of chapter but then I kind of ended it on a cliffhanger so I'm not sure if it counts.**

 **Unchained Melody**

 **Chapter Seven: Cake**

With the process of Lexie being discharged looming over him, Mark found himself becoming increasingly restless. He couldn't sit still, he tapped his foot against the floor, and he played with his phone until he dropped it and the screen cracked. Eventually, he told his wife he had to go check up on a patient, and left the room.

First, Mark headed for his office. It was a nice office, although it didn't have too many personal touches at this point. His desk was overflowing with paperwork (a _lot_ of paperwork, given there was a large amount of paperwork involved in setting up an entire plastics wing), because he was procrastinating most of it _before_ Lexie arrived in Seattle and now she was here, he couldn't concentrate on something so sheerly mundane amidst so much drama.

His office in New York had a few framed pictures, but he hadn't bought any of that stuff to Seattle, so there were no pictures in his office except for one he kept in the top drawer of his desk – a Polaroid of Addison he got a few weeks back, when one of his kid patients was snapping pictures of everybody and everything passing by. It wasn't a very good picture, because it was blurry and Addison was partially covered in spit-up, but he treasured it (even more so, now).

There was a coffee cup on his desk, right at the edge so that if one of the many folders there slipped and fell on it, it would fall and smash. It wasn't one of those paper cups the coffee from the coffee cart came in, but something ceramic or maybe Pyrex, and it was from some coffee that Mark made for himself in the attendings' lounge. What was special about it was the lipstick stain on the rim, from where Addison drank from it as they shared the coffee between them.

What was special about that coffee cup was that Addison put it down beside her on the desk, because she was sat on it, and pulled Mark in for a goodbye kiss, because she had to leave for a patient. And that kiss tasted like lipgloss and coffee and it was the last time he kissed her.

Under other circumstances, he'd wash the cup and return it to the attendings' lounge, but an uncharacteristic act of sentimentality lead to him instead moving it back a few inches, so that it was less likely to fall, and then leaving it there.

He didn't stay in his office. There wasn't anything to do there – except for paperwork, and there was too much drama at the hospital for anybody to bother with that kind of work, really – and the window didn't open, and he decided that what he needed was fresh air to calm him down.

So next, Mark headed for outside.

Except he didn't make it outside.

He was halfway across the catwalk when he saw Derek. He smiled, as one does when they see their best friend, and began to say, "Hey, man-" when he was cut off by Derek's fist coming into contact with his face.

Mark stumbled backwards and wiped blood away from his face, reeling from the impact. "What the hell, Shep?" he asked incredulously.

" _That_ ," Derek said, breathing heavily and clutching his fist, "is for lying to me, and my sister, and my friends, and my best friend. And this," he said, raising his fist again, "is for _everything_."

Derek always did like being dramatic, was what Mark thought as he heard Webber exclaim, " _Shepherd! Your hands!_ " and Derek's fist once more hit his face, this time right in the centre on his nose. He didn't duck to avoid the hit, because he figured he deserved it at the very least (although it was all still Lexie's fault, really), but swore as he felt blood begin to trickle down his face.

And then he hit Derek right back.

He must have punched pretty hard, because he felt his knuckles burn in pain as they met Derek's cheekbone, and Derek not only stumbled but also fell, clutching the injured part of his face with a ridiculously surprised look on his face. "What was that for?" Derek asked. He sounded annoyed.

"Well, you hit me," Mark shrugged, wiping yet more blood off his face. "I had to hit you back."

"Are you going to hit me again?" Derek asked, warily.

"Nah," Mark said. "I figure I deserved it, for how I hurt Addie at the very least."

"Damn right you did," Dr. Bailey said as she helped Derek up off the floor. "Manwhore. O'Malley, go help Dr. Sloan fix his face so he doesn't sue the hospital."

Mark shrugged off O'Malley. "I'm not suing the hospital," he grumbled. "I'll fix my own damn face." He nodded at Derek and Dr. Bailey and then left, headed for the closest exam room, the one by the attendings' locking room.

However, upon getting there, Mark was once again surprised.

* * *

Derek hissed in pain as Meredith carefully examined his cheekbone, the soft pads of her fingers gently skating over his heavily bruised skin.

"I thinks it's broken," she told him. "But I'd have to page Dr. Torres or somebody from ortho to make sure, send you up for an x-ray."

"Feels broken," Derek murmured. "The stupid bastard."

"You did hit him first," Meredith reasoned, hitting a particularly painful part of his face and making him hiss in pain. "Sorry."

Derek's stayed quiet, almost sullen, and Meredith got the feeling that if it weren't for his cheekbone, he'd be pouting right about now.

"She's my sister, you know," Meredith said finally.

"Who?"

"Lexie. McSteamy- Mark's wife. She's Thatcher's daughter, the one who went to med school."

Derek placed a hand on her shoulder. "Well, are you okay?" he asked. "About that?"

"I… think so," Meredith said, sitting down on the on-call room bed beside him. "I've had a little while to get used to the idea, and we've spoken… a little. I mean, I wasn't thrilled to meet her, and she's married to McSteamy? Like, what kind of weird, messed-up logic is that? Some ten million people in the world and she chooses my McDreamy's best friend? That's practically incestuous! But… George likes her. Blythe assigned him to her case. And she is nice. Painfully nice. It makes her hard to hate. She's bright and shiny."

She could have carried on talking, but Derek wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close, and she welcomed the warmth offered by his body so soon they were hugging. Or, he was hugging her, really.

It was nice. Meredith hadn't been hugged all that much in her life.

"Derek?" Meredith mumbled into her boyfriend's hair. "Do you think I should ask her to move in with us? I mean, she doesn't really have anyone here, does she? And Mark leaves in the house. She's probably going to live there anyway, if he does, but just in case – she isn't exactly in the kind of condition suited for a hotel – and that's sisterly, right?"

"It sounds sisterly," Derek replied. "Although you shouldn't think about whether what you're doing is sisterly too much. One time when I was staying over at Nancy's house for Easter, she made me sleep in the treehouse outside because she and Addison were trying to convince me to get rid of the trailer. Said it was perfect for a flannel-wearing wood-chopping fisherman."

Meredith smiled. Stories about Derek's family were always nice to hear, given she didn't have many of her own beyond 'I saw my mother kill herself'.

"It could be nice," Meredith decided. "We could be like that. I always wanted a sister, when I was little." She'd wanted a little sister called Ashley, actually, but Ellis had thought the name was tacky. Lexie was no Ashley. "Do you think it'll be awkward?"

"Maybe," Derek said. "In the beginning. Although it doesn't have to be."

"Maybe," she echoed. She then tried to unwrap herself from his arms, to little avail. "Derek, I have to go get someone to look at your face," she laughed as he whined and tried to hold onto her.

He gave her this really pathetic, puppy-face look. "Please?" he said. "I can page Callie for you. I need somebody to look after me!"

"You're hardly dying," Meredith said, but she was still smiling and she picked the discarded ice pack up off the floor and curled up on the on-call room bed with him, gently holding it to his cheekbone.

It all felt oddly like home.

Derek felt like home.

* * *

When Mark entered the exam room, it was already occupied. Addison was sat on the exam table, head tilted forwards, a wad of bloody tissues pressed to her face. There were a few blood stains on her scrubs.

"Red?" he asked as he stepped forward, instantly worried. "Are you okay? What happened?" He clenched his bruised fists. "Did somebody hurt you? Who hurt you?"

"I'm fine, Mark," Addison said, glaring at him a little, although the effect was lost a little because she sounded congested as a result of the bloody nose so it came out as 'Ib fibe Babk'. "It's just a nosebleed. Happened in surgery, little bugger. Had to have somebody else take over for me."

"Oh," he said. He grabbed a wad of tissues for himself, wiping away the blood already on his face with the back of his arm, and sat down on the exam table beside Addison. She shuffled over a little to make room for him, or maybe to make room between them.

They sat together in surprisingly comfortable silence for a while. She was using her right hand to hold the wad of tissues to her face, and so was he, and thus they both had free left hands. Both were on the exam table between them, separated by only a few millimetres of space.

Most of his attention was focused on that. She'd had her nails manicured recently – he could tell – and her hands are still a little red from scrubbing out.

"Do you think it looks broken?" he asked her.

"What?"

"My nose. Do you think it looks broken?"

She gently probed his battered nose, and he relished the feeling of her skin meeting his even if it was painful.

"No," she told him finally, her hands leaving his face.

He wasn't sure if that was what makes him do it – missing the feeling of being close to her, already – but he found himself gently tilting her face upwards – the bleeding had stopped, and she threw away her tissues when she began to examine his nose – so he could look into her eyes – this mix of blue and green which he'd always loved – and tracing the line of her red lips with a touch as soft as a whisper.

And then she was leaning in even more.

And so was he.

And he already knew they were going to kiss, because they always kissed. Of course they did. They were MarkandAddison.

Part of him wondered when they became MarkandAddison.

A different part wondered why he liked it so much.

But then her lips were catching his and she was kissing him and he was kissing her and suddenly he wasn't even thinking anymore.

It was probably unsanitary, given they'd both been bleeding from their noses pretty recently, and his face hurt, and it was probably a bad idea all-around because they'd hate themselves for it later.

But he didn't pull away. Because for a minute, just for a minute, he wanted to believe that things could be okay. They could have this. A life together. Not a happy ending – a happy middle.

Eventually, however, they ran out of air.

She ran her finger along the line of the cut Derek left on his face. "That'll need sutures," she informed him softly, her breath tickling his cheek.

"I know," he replied. "I was going to do it myself, but then I found you here, and…. Here we are."

She chuckled. "Here we are."

They stayed as they were for a few blissful minutes, she resting her head on his shoulder.

"I'll suture your face," she told him.

"And kiss it better?" he asked hopefully, grinning.

A smile quirked at her lips. "Maybe," she told him. "If you're good."

But the moment faded and they remembered reality and she lapsed back against his chest. "I'm tired, Mark," she mumbled.

He knew the feeling all too well. The exhaustion. "Me too," he said.

She fell asleep against him, lulled by the sound of his heartbeat, and he knew by the way her breaths slowed and deepened gradually and she allowed herself to relax in his arms.

His face needed suturing still, but he'd willingly scar for her.

* * *

There was a pageant on TV, this time, and Callie, Amelia, and Addison were sprawled across the couch making bitchy comments about the contestants and having the time of their lives when the doorbell rang.

"It's the pizza guy," Callie declared as she got to her feet. "He's late!"

"Is it the hot pizza guy?" Amelia asked, following her to the door.

"Amy!" Addison said, naturally also going along for the trip. "The hot pizza guy is practically a fetus still! I wouldn't be surprised if he was still in high school!"

It wasn't the hot pizza guy. Although he wasn't exactly ugly, the looks of disappointment on the women's faces can't have been good for his self-esteem.

"Pizza!" Callie sang, pushing the door closed behind the pizza guy with her elbow as her arms were filled by the three pizza boxes she was holding.

"Oh, gimme!" Amelia said, grabbing the top box and opening it.

"You'll get pizza sauce on the carpet again," Callie complained. "I'm the one who had to get that out."

"Is there olives on it?" Addison asked, peering at the pizza over Amelia's shoulder. "I swear, I'd kill for olives on my pizza right now."

Callie gave her a weird look as the three of them sat back down on the sofa. "You hate olives," she reminded her.

Addison shrugged. "I hated pineapple when I was a kid," she said. "Look at me now."

"Um, you still hate pineapple," Amelia said.

"I know," Addison said, wrinkling her nose. "Ew, pineapple. I'm going to go get some olives."

"I'm not sure if we have any!" Callie called after her.

"I could always go ask next door!"

"Can you grab me a beer? Oh my god, that one looks like a giraffe!"

"Oh, me too!"

Addison returned with two bears and a jar of olives. "Do olives have an expiration date?" she asked, passing her friends their drinks.

Amelia shrugs. "I have no clue," she said. "I've always figured expiration dates are useless, anyway. Are you not drinking?"

"I'm on-call," Addison replied, and then she popped an olive in her mouth. "No, they're good," she said, and then she set about to putting them on her pizza.

Mark loved pizza, a part of her recalled. Except for the crust – a surprisingly finicky eater at times, he hated it.

The crust was Addison's favourite part. And just as he picked the olives out of her salad and she saved him the croutons, he left his crusts and she had them.

It was a nice memory, but Addison wasn't about to let it ruin her pizza.

Although it was hard, she was going to get over Mark. There could no longer by anymore kisses in exam rooms, no more crying over Italian paisley sheets. She had to grow up, and start acting responsible, and be an adult, because that wasn't a choice anymore.

* * *

It began awkwardly. Of course it did. Mark and his wife were in some odd sort of relationship status where he followed her around everywhere but spent the whole time pouting and she looked at him with love but also like he'd just killed her puppy.

But then it continued to be awkward. Meredith hadn't realised just how much her sister would be… _around_. Logically, she should have. She lived with Derek and George and Mark and Izzie, and there'd been a point where Addison had practically lived there too, so she knew what having another person live at the house would entail. She knew Lexie was pregnant and wasn't currently attending school.

That didn't mean she was prepared for it.

Suddenly, Lexie was everywhere. She was failing at doing yoga in front of the TV, and she was eating all their food, and she was stocking orange juice in cupboards which had held only alcohol and coffee for the past years.

And Meredith tried not to mind. She really did.

But it was morning. Early morning. Because she had an early shift. And so did Derek.

Therefore, Derek was sat at the kitchen table. He was eating his muesli and doing the crossword. Meredith was sat on his lap, comfortably drowning in a pair of his pajamas, eating her own grilled cheese and helping.

And it would have been the perfect couple-y image, something for the scrapbooks – if Lexie weren't there. But Lexie was there, because Lexie was always there. She was sat right across from them at the kitchen table, hogging the international news section of the newspaper and eating pickles.

And, seriously, Meredith was _trying_ but she was _always there_.

On the other hand, this actually meant that Meredith built a kind-of bond with Mark. Both were still pretty widely hated throughout the hospital (Meredith by the nurses who still believed she'd stolen Rose's McDreamy; Mark by just about everybody) and both were currently pretty annoyed about Lexie.

"She steals my sheets," Mark grumbled as they drank tequila in the back garden, like teenagers. "All of them. I've always hated that. Addison didn't steal the sheets. She kicked them off, usually. She kicked a lot. I didn't mind. I think I'd mind if Lexie was kicking a lot."

"She keeps asking me about baby names," Meredith said. "And talking, about the baby, and I have no idea how to tell her that _I_ _don't care_ , because I just don't like kids. And she won't. Stop. Talking!"

The worst part was, everybody else seemed to like Lexie. Izzie, although somewhat wary of the woman and rarely home anymore anyway because she was spending most of her time at Alex's, was friendly towards her, George was completely enamoured with her (Cristina claimed it was a crush, and it was probably because Lexie was so much like Meredith if Meredith was bright and shiny, although – personally – Meredith didn't see any resemblance), and even Derek liked her.

In fact, Derek liked Lexie quite a bit. Not in the same way he liked Meredith – that was clear, and she trusted him, anyway – but in a little sister kind of way that made Amelia dislike Lexie all the more than she already did. Derek had taken to tutoring Lexie a little, telling her stuff about his surgeries and explaining things. Meredith could tell he liked it, for the first time actually seeing that part of Derek Shepherd which had always seemed to long for the simple profession of being a high school biology teacher.

The hospital _adored_ Lexie. They probably shouldn't have, seeing as she was Meredith's sister and they hated Meredith, and also she cheated on Mark even if he did cheat too, but they did. She was chirpy and naïve and she was nice to the nurses, and it was enough. The fact that she was pregnant probably helped.

However, today, when Meredith made her way down to the kitchen and turned on the coffee machine in preparation for Derek, she found no Lexie in the kitchen.

She wasn't 'nesting', or ruining perfectly good pickles with maple syrup and ice-cream, or making pros and cons lists about the names Sylvie and Elsa.

Meredith assumed that she was just asleep.

But then she was hit by her feeling. Her bad feeling.

Something wasn't right.

 **Apologies for any mistakes. As always, thank you for the reviews! And sorry if yours didn't post, because there seems to be a bit of a problem right now where either the reviews post really late, or they appear in my thingy really late, so – again – sorry if I didn't reply to your review.**

 **Gguest - don't we all hate Lexie? She gets in the way of Maddison, and Mark totally should have left the preschooler for Addie on the show. However, that being said, I do plan on her sticking around a while, until like season eight-ish of my timeline, I think only really because of something I need her to do about season seven-ish in my timeline. On the other hand, we may be guest-starring Sam in a few chapters! Thanks for loving my story!**

 **Irony-FLD - I'm glad you like this! I'm not sure how to make Mark a little jealous on Addison's part, but I'll try and incorporate it. If Sam does make a guest appearance, there'll at least be a little jealousy of a different kind. :)**

 **Patsy –there was a little MerDer in this chapter! I think. I hoped you liked it, anyway. I've always thought Lexie was a sort of April Kepner character in that she got on the show, and people didn't like her, and then she was paired with Mark even though he clearly belongs with Addison, and suddenly people liked her. I'm not sure how her and Lexie's relationship will develop in this story. Thanks!**

 **Guest - ¡Gracias! Bebé Ella Montgomery es sin duda una posibilidad en este punto! Thanks for reviewing, and sorry because I used google translate to write this so it's almost definitely all wrong.**

 **Kae (I'm just hoping both reviews by Kae were by the same person, sorry) – wow, you're perceptive. But is Addison pregnant? Maybe I'm just littering the story with red herrings to confuse you. Maybe I'm going to make even Addison think she's pregnant, only for her to come up with a load of negative pregnancy tests. Maybe she's actually got cancer. Or maybe she is pregnant and in a few years Addison will be cheering on little towheaded Ella as she plays soccer. You'll probably find out, like, next chapter. Thanks for liking this and reviewing!**


	8. Chapter 8: Boulevard of Broken Dreams

**I'm not too happy with this chapter, to be honest, and I don't like the title, but it was the only one I could think of that really fit at all. I find the prospect of next chapter very promising though, from what I have so far. And, just to clarify, Mark isn't some kind of jerk or psychopath, he just has emotional shock, which isn't unusual and can result in some confusion and/or temporary memory loss. Also, the first scene is set before the rest of the chapter. Also, Sam will be making his appearance at a future… event occurring in Seattle in about two chapters or so.**

 **Unchained Melody**

 **Chapter 8: Boulevard of Broken Dreams**

Throughout her life, Addison had always had a somewhat strange habit of hiding in closets – the literal, not metaphorical, kind. They were where she went when she needed to feel safe. As a child, Addison sought comfort amidst the familiar scent of fabric softener and the gentle rustle of expensive clothing as she ran her fingers across designer fabrics, whispering names like _Prada_ or _Versace_ as though they were magic spells.

As an adult, Addison did what was very much the same thing, except now closets seemed to extend to the kind found in a hospital as well as the kind found in a house.

It was very likely for this reason that Amelia, who'd known Addison since she was unicorn-loving twelve year old that really wanted to get her ears pierced, knew exactly where to locate Addison a few days before Meredith got her Feeling.

Addison was curled up in a corner of her walk-in closet with a cup of juju, Mark's t-shirt clutched tightly in her hand like a security blanket.

She wasn't crying. Her eyes were the kind of glassy which usually accompanied her WASPy, cold demeanour; the kind of eyes which didn't see anyone so much as look straight through them.

Callie had accompanied Amelia, and when the two of them saw their friend, Amelia reacted by hugging Addison's stiff, unresponsive body until she began to return the hug, whereas Callie added marshmallows to Addison's juju.

"Addie," Callie said.

"No," Addison said, stubbornly - she knew exactly what Callie was about to start talking about, because Callie was going to try and carry on the conversation they'd been having before Addison left to go hide in her closet under the pretence of needing to go do some charting.

"You're pregnant," Amelia told her bluntly. "You know it, and we know it. And it was your turn to buy tampons yesterday but you didn't, so thanks for that."

"I'm not pregnant," Addison insisted, already beginning to once more tense.

"Prove it then," Amelia dared her. "Pee on a goddamn stick. If it comes up negative then fine, you're not pregnant. But until then, you're guilty until proven innocent."

"I'm not preg-" " _Yes you are!_ "

Addison raised her voice. "I'm not pregnant," she said, "because it isn't real until I've peed on the stick. I have an appointment with Dr. Mills for an ultrasound next week. Then it'll be real. But right now, it is not real, and I am not pregnant."

* * *

 **Shortly After Meredith Got Her Feeling**

Mark was a light sleeper. If he were still seeing her, his therapist would probably accredit that to something to do with his childhood, but she did that with most things.

Mark was a light sleeper, so when he shifted in his sleep, seeking the warmth of the sheets Lexie had _once again_ stolen, he quickly awoke after his body came into contact with something warm and sticky.

When he awoke, wiping sleep from his eyes and running a hand through his hair, he was annoyed. He thought Lexie must have wet the bed, or something. That was something pregnant women did sometimes, wasn't it?

But then he actually looked at the damp sheets in front of him.

And he realised they were red.

Very, very red.

And Lexie, too, was covered in red, blood trickling down her thighs.

Which couldn't be good.

And Mark's first thought, when he saw her and the smell of blood hit his nose, was that she was dead. She had to be dead. And that made him horribly, guiltily relieved.

However, Mark was a surgeon. Although his last obstetrics rotation was well over a decade ago, he was well-versed in how to respond to this kind of situation – an _emergency_ situation – and so he quickly searched for Lexie's pulse, his clammy hands fumbling slightly out of tired panic.

There was a pulse. Weak and fluttery, but present. He'd have checked the baby's pulse, too, but had no idea how to do that, or whether it was possible without the appropriate equipment for that matter, so he instead pressed his hand against Lexie's stomach. It felt very foreign and… round. He felt the baby kicking easily, because it wasn't something weak and fluttery. They were the strong, healthy kicks of a strong, healthy baby.

He wondered what happened to the baby if Lexie died. Had Lexie thought of that, made arrangements just in case? Would _he_ inherit the baby? Or would Sam? It was almost definitely Sam's baby, but Mark was – for all the broken vows and deep hatred – Lexie's husband. Perhaps the baby would go to Lexie's parents; that would probably be better for everybody.

Having determined both Lexie and the baby were alive, Mark quickly made his way downstairs. Meredith was in the kitchen making coffee, an uneasy look on her face as though the coffee machine may eat her.

He must have made quite a lot of noise as he thundered down the stairs, because she instantly whirled around to face him. "Lexie!" Mark choked out, wanting to say so many things at once that he couldn't say much at all. "She's bleeding! Call an ambulance! I'm going next door to go get Addison!"

Meredith nodded, looking around frantically before grabbing the phone. Mark ran out the door, feeling only mildly embarrassed by the fact that he was only in his underwear and not really noticing the cold.

Would he have to make funeral arrangements if Lexie died?

No, Molly or Lexie's mother – _Sarah? Sheila?_ – would probably do it.

He hammered on Addison's front door until a sleepy, moody Amelia wrapped in a blanket opened the door – from the looks of it, she'd spent the night on the couch (probably not alone) and was recovering from a hangover – and burst past her straight upstairs to Addison's room.

He wasn't entirely sure if this sense of urgency was about Lexie rather than the opportunity to see Addison again - she'd been avoiding him lately, and acting all courteous and professional and WASPy when she didn't.

Lexie may have deserved quite a lot of things, but she didn't deserve this, did she? She didn't deserve to die, not when their marriage was just as much his fault as hers. She hadn't been ready for marriage or adulthood or monogamy – Amelia was right, she was practically a preschooler – and honestly, Mark had pretty much forgiven her for cheating by now. It wasn't about that so much as the fact that _she wasn't Addison, and she couldn't compare._

* * *

Having spent a majority of the 1:00am-to-3:00am portion of the night either nauseous or throwing up, Addison was very much enjoying her sleep upon being rudely awaken.

Being a heavy sleeper, Addison took a considerable while to wake. She clung to the last dregs of her sleep as much as she could, and when she saw Mark's face hovering above her own, she assumed she must still be dreaming and pulled an annoyed face, rolling over to get away from him.

Rolling away from him and off the bed, because she hadn't realised just how near she was to its edge.

Addison hit the floor with a thump and a shriek, probably drawing both her roommates' attention.

"You okay, Red?" Mark asked, hoisting her back up and onto the bed, and checking her head for damage with a worried look in his face.

His hands were sweaty, and a little wet. She pushed them away.

"What the hell, Mark?" she asked, annoyed.

She winced as she felt a small stab in her abdomen.

"You okay, Red?" Mark repeated. There was something strangely frantic about the way he was acting.

"Implantation cramps," she muttered in exasperation (just what she needed, at that moment in time), running a hand through her messy hair with a yawn and ignoring the pain, something she'd gotten kind of used to over the past few days. Twelve weeks was a little late for implantation cramps, really, but she didn't know that she was twelve weeks along for sure; her appointment with Dr. Mills was the next day, and today was her last of not being pregnant.

"What?"

"I said, _cramps_ ," she snapped. "Now what do you want, Sloan?"

He sat down on the bed beside her, looking almost shell-shocked. "I think Lexie's hurt," he said in a lost kind of voice which reminded her of what a much younger Mark Sloan may have been like. "She's bleeding. There's a lot of blood."

"What?" she said, already stumbling back up to her feet and hopping around on one foot as she tried to pull on a sneaker. "You couldn't have mentioned it sooner?" her face softened slightly when she noticed how confused part of him looked. "You didn't have to be so meandering," she continued as she pulled on her jacket and began to leave quickly – he followed her, slower. "Do you know her stats?"

"Uh, pulse is thready. The baby's kicking a lot." She probably could have gotten more from an intern, but he was a family member regardless of his current family status – she supposed it was perfectly normal that he was in shock.

By now, they were making their way up the stairs of the frat house and up to Mark's room. "There isn't much I'll be able to do until the ambulance arrives," Addison was telling him as they finally reached their destination, where Meredith was kneeling by Lexie with a worried look on her face and speaking on the phone – Addison joined her by Lexie's bedside, while Mark hung back. "I'll probably have to perform a C-Section. Lexie needs a transfusion – or, she will, by the time we get her to an OR. The baby's at 34 weeks – practically 35 – so she has a very good chance of survival, although she'll likely have a low birth weight and have to spend some time in the NICU."

There was the sound of ambulance already in the distance, which wasn't surprising since the Grey household was easily within ten minutes of the hospital by car.

Addison turned around to ask Mark about whether Lexie had any allergies – Addison didn't think she did, beyond being lactose intolerant, but Mark should have known better given he was her husband and Addison was her doctor for all of ten minutes – but found Mark gone.

Maybe he left to greet the paramedics and fill them in on everything. Maybe he left to go get a head start on the ambulance in getting to the hospital. Hell, maybe he left to head for a whole new state with a new hospital and new women. He was just, quite simply, gone.

A groan escaped Lexie's lips, and her eyes fluttered, making both Addison and Meredith to quickly once more turn their attention to her.

"Lexie? Lexie?" Meredith asked – somewhere in the background she registered a still half-asleep Derek, who must have been the one to actually let the paramedics inside – and Lexie's eyes fluttered some more as she became alarmed and tried to sit up.

Her pulse was still far too high – practically preeclamptic – and she wasn't looking too good, which was when Addison realised she probably was preeclamptic. She didn't know whether Lexie knew that – any abnormalities found in Lexie's twenty four hour urine test when she was admitted at the hospital would have been taken to Dr. Blythe, given Addison wouldn't have been her doctor anymore.

But it wasn't looking good.

"Lexie, you and your baby are in danger," Addison informed Lexie as the paramedics lifted her onto the stretcher and she struggled weakly against the oxygen mask placed on her face. "You're bleeding heavily, and the ambulance is going to take you to the hospital, where Dr. Blythe will perform a-"

Lexie was shaking her head from side to side, and tugging at her oxygen mask. Meredith lifted it up for her so she could convey whatever it was she wanted to say.

"No… no, Dr. Blythe…" Lexie managed to gasp out, looking increasingly weaker. "Want… best… you…"

* * *

When all of it became too much – the noise, the chaos, how bright everything was and, over it all, how relief at that this could all be over so quickly was sparring within him with the guilt at feeling this way – Mark left the room. He walked down the stairs and made to grab a coffee but then changed his mind, and left the house.

He found his way to Addison's house, instead.

He knocked on the door again until Amelia answered it once more, this time wearing a dressing gown, and then walked right past her and into the hallway, where he just _stood_.

And he didn't listen to Amy talking, or asking questions, and only caught the tail-end of, " _Mark_ , he- _llo_?"

Then Callie, probably awoken by all the chaos which had so curiously bought such distress to Mark, wandered down the stairs, yawning widely.

"What's wrong?" Callie asked, stretching. "Why's Mark here? Who's the ambulance for?"

"I think it's something to do with his baby," Amelia said. She'd always been intuitive, good at guessing – although _it was not **his** goddamn baby!_

"What baby?" Mark asked, dazed.

"He's in shock," Amelia stated, flicking him in the face.

And Callie must not have woken up properly yet, or maybe she was just disorientated, but she asked, "The baby? Are Addie and the kiddo okay? What happened?"

"Lexie!" Amelia corrected her quickly, and loudly. "Lexie, his wife? Their baby? Addison went over next-door to help."

Mark didn't notice anything strange about this until a few minutes later, when it'd been echoing around his head for a while and he finally shook out of whatever shock he was in and asked, "Who's the kiddo?"

"What kiddo?" Callie replied, all wide eyes and _crap crap crap_ face.

"You asked if Addie was okay, and then you mentioned a kiddo…" Mark began to say, when it was suddenly as though a lightbulb went off in his head and he finally made the connection, asking, "Is Addison pregnant with a baby? With my baby?"

* * *

The surgical team was already in the OR, Lexie on the table ready to deliver her baby.

Addison and Karev were in the process of scrubbing in when Karev asked, "You okay, Dr. Montgomery?" She was all pale, eerily so in the bright glow of the surgical lights, and she looked like if you were to touch her alabaster skin, it would be clammy.

"Fine," Dr. Montgomery said in a voice that was a little higher than normal, the kind someone would speak in if they were suppressing the urge to cry out in pain.

"You look like you're in pain," Karev told her. "You shouldn't be operating if you're in pain."

"Careful there, Karev," Addison said. "I might actually think you like me enough to want to stay on my service for longer. Mrs. Sloan asked me to operate; operate is what I shall do. Besides… it's- it's just my shoulder. I'll be fine."

 **Thanks to all those who reviewed, and once again, apologies if I somehow missed yours out.**

 **Well done Kae, who was the first to guess that Addison was pregnant.**

 **Hushedgreylily – thanks! I'm glad you liked it. Addison is indeed, as you can obviously see, pregnant, although I'm not exactly happy with the way I portrayed it in the beginning of this chapter.**

 **ProudToBeAmerican27/The Radley/Christyanna/Chrissy – wow, you change your name a lot! Thanks for reading this, enjoying it, and reviewing. I've always been of the opinion that the world needs more Maddison babies, and I quite honestly can't help myself from creating them so… voila! Thanks!**

 **Scrittoreitaliano – thanks!**

 **Irony-FLD – Addison is indeed pregnant with Mark's baby, although I've not quite figured out Lexie's reaction yet (even I'm not exactly sure what it'll be) as she's going to be pretty much knocked out for at least the next chapter. Thanks! I'm glad you like this!**

 **Patsy - I'm glad you're glad I'm back! Don't worry, Lexie thinks of Derek as a purely mentor/brother-in-law kind of figure. Lexie is sorta sick right now, although whether or not she dies is the kind of issue which won't really be explored until quite a lot further down the line. The real baby daddy is certainly coming soon! Thanks!**


	9. Chapter 9: Death And All His Friends

**Oh, finally, update! As, annoyingly enough, always, I have unfortunately forgotten everything I wanted to put in this A/N. Oh, except that for a while I pondered guest-starring either Addison's brother or parents, but decided against it because A) I don't think I can really write them and B) it's crowded enough with Sam guest-starring next chapter. As always, I apologise for any mistakes and welcome constructive criticism. Also, Sukie is a nickname for Susannah that one of my friends uses for her Sukie, and I thought it was cute so I worked that in.**

 **Trigger warning for miscarriage, death, and stillbirth.**

 **Unchained Melody**

 **Chapter 9: Death And All His Friends**

Lexie's surgery was a real life manifestation of Murphy's Law; every time she managed to close one bleeder, another three sprouted. By the time Addison finally pulled Baby Grey out of her mother's uterus, she was blue and not even the smallest of wheezy breaths would escape her pale lips.

Dr. Blythe closed up with assistance from Dr. Karev. Lexie's body seemed to finally cooperate now that the baby had been evacuated from the mother's body; BPM went up, breathing stabilised, and a little colour seemed to return to Lexie's face.

Unfortunately, the same did not go for Baby Grey.

While Blythe worked on Lexie, Addison worked on the baby – a little girl, as predicted. She did everything she could; she attempted tactile stimulation, she administered adrenaline and epinephrine, and then she performed chest compressions for what was certainly far longer than necessary.

She was still performing chest compressions when Lexie was wheeled out and the OR began to empty, and that was when somebody stopped her, and grabbed hold of her wrists to stop her from continuing.

It seemed Mark had made his reappearance. Except now, he was dressed in scrubs, and he looked worse than he did before because there were bags under his eyes and he looked haggard – haunting, under the glow of the surgical lights.

"Red," he said. "Red, stop. It's… she's gone."

He let go of her and she let her arms fall limp to her sides. "Time of death," she glanced at the clock, "5:47," she said, and then she spared the small baby on the surgical table a last glance as she stalked past Mark and towards the door.

Mark had his own, private goodbye with the baby, carefully stroking the palm of one of her tiny starfish hands, before he followed Addison. The baby obviously wasn't his – if the pigmentation of her skin wasn't a clue, the dark curls of her hair and her Bennet nose and what were probably Bennet eyes would have been substantial evidence of the baby's parentage.

Addison was scrubbing out when she was joined by Mark, and she was blinking back tears. It could have been hormones, or it could have been the persistent stabbing in her abdomen, which had increased – out of stress or anxiety, she expected – in severity since earlier in the morning.

But most likely, it was the baby, and Lexie.

Although she hadn't been aware of it at the time, Addison had likely played at least some part in the destruction of Lexie's marriage. She felt guilty about it, but there wasn't much she could do to fix what had happened.

However, the least of it could have been ensuring that Lexie's baby survived. The least of it could have been being a good enough a surgeon. Operating quickly enough. Finding a way to resuscitate the tiny infant who shouldn't have already being dead upon her introduction to the world outside her mother.

And she didn't. She wasn't.

She failed.

When he first joined her in scrubbing out, Mark didn't speak. That didn't last long – it rarely did, with Mark.

"So, when were you planning on telling me about my child that you're carrying?" Mark said conversationally, in a way that felt purely bitter and the almost downright malicious look in his eye was so foreign to the way he looked at her – at that Baby – in the OR just seconds ago that she found him hard to recognise. He looked betrayed, more than anything else.

She wasn't sure why she said it. Maybe she was just so set in her determination to forget there was a baby – beyond not drinking, and the like – until the next day's check-up with the OB, or maybe it was because it felt so horrible and disrespectful to talk about the baby she'd started referring to as Ella in her head when Mark's other child – biological or not – was a cold corpse on that table just a few feet away.

Whatever the reason, she gave him her best, coldest glare as she had many times in the past few weeks and said, "There is no baby Mark. You would have been a horrible father."

She regretted it the instant she said it.

In her head, she knew Mark had a lot of the potential to be an amazing father. The kind who barbecued and played catch with the kids. She knew it was stupid and unreasonable to tell him this, because what exactly would she tell him when se was six months pregnant and the bump couldn't be hidden anymore? She couldn't exactly hide the baby in the closet every time Mark happened to pass by their house.

But she did say it, and she saw Mark's face darken as he drew understanding of her words and interpreted them as to meaning that she had an abortion, and then he slammed out of the room so she was just left staring as the door swung shut.

She stayed like that for what felt like a long time, the water from the taps still running.

And then she was suddenly hit by a gut-wrenching pain in her abdomen which drew her to her knees with an alarmed whimper of pain, and perhaps this was karma, she thought as her consciousness faded and she saw the first drop of blood on her scrubs, because it certainly seemed the like the only possible explanation for such an ironic scenario.

Murphy's Law indeed.

* * *

Lexie's eyes were heavy. Why were Lexie's eyes heavy? They were hard to open, very hard to open.

She could only flutter them for a little while, in an attempt to keep them long enough to see anything except the hospital room she had grown all too accustomed to over the past few weeks.

Eventually, however, Lexie did manage to sluggishly open her eyes, and keep them that way.

"You're awake," Meredith stated. She was sat by Lexie's bedside with a pile of charts. "That's, uh, that's good. Here, have a drink."

She carefully held a plastic cup of water for Lexie long enough for the younger woman to take a few sips from the straw that was stood in it.

Lexie sat back in her bed, allowing her heavy eyelids to flutter closed again just for a second. Near-subconsciously, her hand drifted to rest on her stomach.

Her… flat – no, more like flatter – stomach.

It felt… weird. Deflated.

And it was probably the drugs, but it took a second for Lexie to react, to grab her stomach in alarm and then wince in pain – she must have had a c-section – and ask, "Mer? My baby? My baby? Is my baby okay? Is she okay?"

She knew the second she saw Meredith that her baby was not okay. It was all over Meredith's face. She'd put on that solemn face a doctor always wore when they went out to greet the parents and said, "I'm very sorry, but I have some bad news…" It was that kind of face.

"Lexie…" Meredith said gently, looking very much unsure if what she was doing but trying to comfort Lexie by taking hold of her hand anyway. "Lexie, I'm so, so sorry but the baby… she didn't make it."

"Oh," Lexie said in this very, very tiny voice.

She felt very, very tiny right now.

What did she do? What was she meant to do?

"Oh."

"They tried, they really did, Lexie, Dr. Montgomery attempted to revive her for far longer than anybody else would have, and even if she had survived she probably would have had learning difficulties, maybe cerebral palsy, severe brain damage…" Meredith continued to talk. She was trying to be comforting and sisterly, so Lexie didn't stop her, but she did allow her words to fade into background noise.

She remembered that part of last night, the panic of suddenly being on a stretcher and having an oxygen mask pressed against her face, all this warm liquid against her thighs… she asked for Dr. Montgomery, she remembered, instead of Dr. Blythe. She asked for the best.

It seemed even the best wasn't enough.

"Can I see my baby?" Lexie asked, interrupting Meredith.

Meredith bit her lip. "I mean… you probably shouldn't," Meredith said. "You just had major surgery and you were dead for a few minutes, actually, and you're supposed to be on bedrest but…"

"Meredith, my baby is dead."

"Well, wait a minute," Meredith decided. "I'll need to get George, to help. And a wheelchair. There's no way you'll manage to walk."

Lexie's baby was a pretty baby. She had this thick, dark hair and very soft, tanned skin. She had ten fingers, ten toes, twenty tiny digits in total, and a nose that was distinctly reminiscent of Sam.

She was perfect. She would have been a gorgeous kid. She would have been so, so loved.

"Do you have a name for her?" Meredith asked quietly. She was stood off to the side a little, to give Lexie space. Meredith was nice like that, even if she did sometimes end up being quite a bit awkward.

"Susannah," Lexie replied. "Susannah Elise Grey." Mark had already said he didn't want anything to do with the baby, multiple times, and she didn't suppose that had changed.

"I thought you wanted Pearl, for a middle name," Meredith said. "You were so set on it."

The reason she didn't, couldn't pick the name Pearl was because she was undeserving of granting her child that name. Pearl was supposed to be all about how this baby had been a precious treasure, safely ensconced within the swollen oyster of Lexie's stomach. It had sounded poetic and beautiful, inside her head.

Except Lexie hadn't been able to keep her baby safe. Susannah – Sukie – was no Pearl because if she was, Lexie would have been able to protect her somehow, to save her.

Of course, she didn't say this.

"I just… didn't like it," Lexie told Meredith. "And besides? Pearl Grey? It sounds like a brand of tea. She'd have gotten made fun of at school. I like Elise better." Privately, Elise was like her own alternative to Ella, but she didn't think she was going to ever share that with anyone – it felt more like Dr. Montgomery's name than it ever had her own.

Meredith left, and so did George, out of respect. They must have wanted to give Lexie space, although she was fairly sure at least one of them was stood right behind that door.

However, now that she was alone and it was just Lexie and Sukie, Lexie and her daughter, Lexie allowed ugly tears – the kind that made you turn red and resulted in snot bubbling in your nose - to spill from her eyes, and in a cracking tearful voice, she sang her baby a lullaby.

* * *

It was early morning. The sky was too bright outside, with no sun but not enough clouds. It wasn't raining at the moment, but according to weather forecasts it would in the afternoon.

Amelia, Callie, and Derek sat around a bed in the coma ward and ate their breakfast. The atmosphere was a lot more solemn than usual. It felt wrong with Mark's missing presence, and it seemed cruel to act joyful and happy when Mark's step(?)daughter had just died.

Earlier, when he met up with them at the hospital, Derek asked Callie where Addison was. The last they'd heard of her, she was operating on Lexie, but there was a possibility she'd been called in for another case or surgery since then, was the answer.

"New patient," Derek finally remarked to Amy, nodding to the little girl who had been moved into the bed at the other side of the room, nearest to the door and the nurses's station shortly outside it. She was dressed in Hello Kitty pajamas, instead of the typical hospital gown, and there was a teddy bear tucked next to her in bed, little pink bows dotting the frizzy and gravity-defying, yet at the same time by-now limp and somewhat greasy, hair on her head.

"Jessie McKee," Amelia told Derek. "She's eight. She was playing outside her house and some jerk with a bike plowed straight through her. Skull fractured in three different places, mass brain haemorrhage. It's a miracle she survived at all, but she isn't going to wake up – like, ever – and yet her dad keeps insisting that's it's possible, that it's gonna happen."

"That's sad," Derek said, swinging backwards on his chair. "Nothing happy ever happens anymore."

His words must have been true, because the page they received from Bailey in the following seconds sent him toppling off his chair and onto the floor.

* * *

She had a cholecystectomy in OR 4 and Stevens was assisting, which was the reason why the two of them entered the scrub room.

They stepped into something wet, and Bailey heard the tap running, and she wondered which one of those fools with scalpels left the taps running. It was hardly a surprise they couldn't afford new nurses if the water bills – and the costs for any water damage – were piling up.

And then she heard Stevens' sharp intake of breath, and she followed her gaze, and what she saw drew a gasp from her too.

At some point, the water overflowing with the sink merged with the blood pooling around Addison Montgomery and turned pink. She was pale and she looked clammy – possible hypovolemia, Bailey thought, already going into doctor mode – and if she hadn't known corpses as well as she did Bailey would have thought she was dead.

Stevens looked like she might throw up. She hadn't been working as long as Bailey, some five or six months at the most, probably wasn't used to ever seeing anything remotely resemblant of this.

"Go get help and a gurney," Bailey instructed her, and then she waded through the water over to Addison's side, her scrubs becoming wet and stained as she knelt there and began to take her stats. Montgomery was tachycardic, tachypneic.

It wasn't looking good.

Addison Montgomery was somebody Bailey would definitely consider a friend, and she had admittedly few of those. While they weren't as close as Montgomery was with Torres and the Shepherds, Bailey would hate to see the woman die, if only because it would give Sloan get more reasons to sulk and pout.

The gurney arrived. Girl-Shepherd too, a little while after that. She was panting for air, like she just ran there – which she probably did.

Bailey was giving out orders to the nurses when she arrived. "Shepherd and Torres not with you?" she asked. They were all usually to be found together, unless actually actively working, and even then had a habit of using each other for consults.

"Derek was swinging on his chair and fell. Cracked his head open. He and Callie had to leave to take care of it. They'll be here soon. How is she?"

"Bad," Bailey replied, not even trying to sugarcoat things. She took off along with the gurney, Stevens, and nurses towards an actual hospital room. Shepherd lagged on behind.

"Bailey!" Shepherd called after her. "Bailey, she's pregnant!"

Bailey's eyes widened, and she looked at Montgomery's flat midsection with sympathy. She was pregnant herself, in the second trimester now.

"Get me an ultrasound," she instructed Stevens, who nodded and followed the order. "Do you know how far along she is?"

"Twelve weeks, give or take a few days in either direction."

The ultrasound revealed what could have been a battle scene. Ruptured Fallopian tube, mass internal bleeding, no wonder she was hypovolemic…

She looked to Stevens for the actual diagnosis, because no matter the patient this was still a teaching hospital.

"Uh, treatment," Stevens stammered. "We'll need to do a laparotomy to gain access and then depending on the damage we'll have to do either a salpingostomy or a salpingectomy."

"And the diagnosis?"

"Ectopic pregnancy."

 **For the purpose of this story, let's just say that Cristina did have an abortion, and not an ectopic pregnancy, given she isn't that major a character here. I'm sorry! About the baby! I was so, so tempted to just have Ella live and I kept trying to convince myself it was a better plot twist than Ella not living and yet somehow this happened anyway. And also sorry if there are any medical/technical inaccuracies – there was only so much I could find out online, and I wasn't sure if it's only the surgeons who use the scrub room, or whether they use it last, or… well, yeah, let's just say that for the purpose of this story, things are that way.**

 **Winter machine – I promised myself I would play this cool, but you're basically my favourite fanfiction writer ever, so I'm fangirling very hard right now because your praise means a lot to me. I think this story is probably very easy to miss if you're a Maddison fan, because Addison isn't mentioned until the end of the summary, whereas Lexie is mentioned in the very beginning – when you see it, if you're like me, you think 'ew, Lexie' and don't bother reading the rest of the summary. I'm glad you liked what you'd read so far and hope you liked everything else, too. Thanks for reviewing!**

 **Scrittoreitaliano – thanks! That means a lot to me! I'm glad you were happy about the Maddison baby, and very, very sorry for getting rid of it.**

 **Hushedgreylily - I'm glad you thought the portrayal of Mark was apt, because I was rather unsure of it, and also how Mark would react to this – on the show, we only ever really see him pining over Lexie, and the only indication I had as to how he react was the crash episode, where he was very much in love with her and not out of love with her, as he is here. I'm glad you're looking forward to more!**

 **Irony-FLD – yeah, the last few chapters have been kinda busy. It's probably going to calm down soon. Lexie had her baby, and Mark found out about Addison's pregnancy… thank you for enjoying.**

 **Patsy – a cliff indeed. Now that I'm seeing how some people reacted to the possibility of a Maddison baby, I'm starting to think it would have been a better cliff if Addison and the baby were actually fine, especially given the exact moment everything in Addison's pregnancy went to hell is incredibly convenient in irony and dramatic effect but… I kind of love the angst. I'm glad you're looking forward to more! :)**

 **Guest – eso es genial! Gracias por revisar.**

 **Alyssa - I'm so sorry, but it seems implantation cramps actually translates to 'in denial explanation for the sudden lower abdominal pain that Wikipedia has described to me' and the pregnancy went really, really wrong. Still, I hope this doesn't hurt your relationship with this story, because I do still plan on giving Mark and Addison some form of a happy ending (interpret that as you will, I try not to give out too many spoilers). Thanks for reviewing!**

 **Addison-fan – given Lexie was at seven months or so, Sukie could have made it. She was going to, actually, but then I thought about whether I'd have Mark and Addison raise her (in this case, Lexie would have died) or whether the Greys Sr. would take her… and it lead me here. The baby died of perinatal asphyxiation (I'm fairly sure that's the term for it?), in case that isn't clear. The father of the baby is definitely evident, although I think Mark could have stepped up to love her and be her dad if he needed to, and they still shared some semblance of a connection. Elise is the closest I could get to Ella without it feeling wrong, in the end, and that's just a middle name. I'm sorry about what happened to the kiddo. Thanks for reviewing!**

 **Kae – I read your review as I put the finishing touches to this chapter, and it broke my heart because you're so excited about the Maddison baby, but you don't know I killed off the Maddison baby. Lexie's baby was indeed mixed-race, although while delivering her Addison had to focus a little more on the fact that she was blue and dying than how it meant Mark may not be so bad after all, especially with what happened to Ella not long after… however, I do like to think that in this AU at least, Mark and Addison may finally be able to have their happily ever after. The falling off the bed didn't do any real harm I don't think, although now I'm also of the opinion that that could have been a brilliant plot twist… in this case, the most it could have done is been the trigger for the Fallopian tube to finally rupture that day. I'm very happy to hear that you liked last chapter and your review is a very uplifting one that made me smile a lot. :) I am so, so, so, so sorry about the Maddison baby. She would have been an amazing kid. And I really want Ella to have lived now. But there will hopefully be a tribute to Ella a lot further along in this story, if I can continue writing that long, and I quite like the idea of having an If/Then sort of chapter later on where she wasn't an ectopic pregnancy, so there will still be some opportunities to meet the original Maddison baby.**

 **Oh Jesus, this A/N was ridiculously long and I feel kind of bad about that now. I think I might start reviewing to people who are logged in when they review through PMs now, if it continues to turn out this way. Thanks for all your support!**


	10. Chapter 10: Girl With One Eye

**Alright, fair warning, there's a lot of crying. I feel like that might be a bit out of character, given Addison doesn't cry much, but I'm pretty sure she'd still be hormonal possibly maybe at this point? Anyway, her baby died – she will, without a doubt, cry at some point. Also, no Lexie this chapter. And there was a change of plan, given there is no Sam this chapter – he appears NEXT chapter. I promise I won't change my mind again this time, although I'm pretty sure nobody cares about Sam anyway.**

 **Unchained Melody**

 **Chapter 10: Girl With One Eye**

 _How do you tell someone their baby is dead?_

Nobody ever had to tell Amelia her father was dead; she'd seen him get shot, and even as a five year old she knew that when someone has their skull blasted apart, they don't survive.

She still had nightmares about it, re-living the exact moment she saw the halo of splattered blood and grey matter around his head, the way his blank eyes stared at her. She saw him and she screamed for a very long time – the way she'd wanted to when she saw that guy pull out a gun, but hadn't been able to for Derek's hand across her mouth stopping her, even when she bit him and hit him and tried to wriggle out of his grasp. She screamed until long after the police arrived.

This was very different.

It wasn't going to be the same, with Addison. She never got to meet her baby – she didn't get five minutes, let alone five years and she hadn't even known the baby's gender, let alone been in possession of fond memories of the two of them together to look back on.

There wouldn't be a funeral, because there was never a baby.

It was just an embryo – that was exactly what Addison would say, Amelia knew. There was never a baby, it was just an embryo. Implanted in the wrong place, doomed from the beginning.

How were you supposed to get closure if there was no funeral? If there wasn't even a body? If all you had to remember the life that was inside of you by was fading scars and the loss of a Fallopian tube, how did you cope?

You didn't really ask yourselves those kinds of questions when you were dealing with normal patients. You just composed yourself, looked contrite, and gave the family the bad news so they could grieve. If you couldn't do that, you had somebody else – a nurse, an intern – do it.

This was different.

This was Addison, not just some patient.

Amelia stopped before the door to Addison's hospital room, trying to get herself ready to break the news to her best friend. She took a deep breath, and tucked the hair falling into her face behind her ear. Her fingers brushed against the shiny silver stud in her ear.

It had been Addison who took the then newly thirteen year old Amelia to get her ears pierced. She'd known the Shepherds nearly a year by that point in time, yet another stray bought into the family by Derek to replace the gap created through the loss of his best friend. The whole family had loved her, the Shepherd sisters welcoming her into their circle, the youngest generation of Shepherd children enamoured by her pretty hair and talent for dealing with children, but Amelia had always loved Addison the most. As much, if not more, than Nancy or Liz or Kate.

It wasn't a case of how to tell someone their baby was dead.

It was a case of how do you tell your sister that her baby is dead?

And then Amelia pushed open the door and entered her sister's room and she realised that she didn't need to tell Addison her baby was dead.

Addison already knew.

* * *

When Addison woke up, she knew the baby is gone.

She didn't have to read her chart, or ask a nurse.

She woke up, groggily rejoining the world of the awake, and she knew it before she'd even opened her eyes: there was no longer a baby in her uterus, if that was even where it had been in the first place.

Quite simply, Addison felt empty.

She felt hollow.

Her baby was gone.

She didn't cry. Not really. The tears pooled in her eyes, and those eventually become red-rimmed, but only a few escaped. She let them pool, and she didn't sit up, but she stayed lying down the way she awoke, counting tiles in the ceiling.

If she focused on the counting, she wouldn't have to think about it. It, the baby. It, what she said to Mark. It, how it was all her fault, everything was her fault. It, how she was a failure, and she failed.

 _It_. Everything.

She kept counting the ceiling tiles, but she always lost track. She never got past twenty-six. She always got distracted, and started thinking.

There was this dull, empty gnawing in her stomach. Like hunger, except it was the baby kicking inside the curved swell of her belly and cradled within her arms so she could stroke soft fair hair and smell that soft new baby scent which she craved, not food.

She wondered when, exactly, everything went to hell. Did she do something wrong? Did she not eat enough, or drink too much in the days when she was blissfully unaware of the pregnancy that was not to be? Was it when she fell out of bed? Was it when she tripped, running in the morning, last week? Were things a mess from the beginning, damned since conception?

At one point, she thought about what the baby might have been like. Blonde and tall, perhaps. Or maybe red-haired, with eyes that were more green than blue. Would they be interested in surgery, or a completely different field? Would they be healthy? With the way the powers that be seemed to enjoy torturing Addison recently, and with her luck, the baby probably would have been born with two heads and a forked tail.

It was her fault that little person would never exist. The one who would have called her Mommy and tugged on three hundred dollar pencil skirts with sticky hands and had the same gap in their front two teeth that Addison had as a kid.

It'sallherfaultit'sallherfaultit'sallherfault and she heard Bizzy's voice in her head, _for God's sake Addison, will you for once in your life be the daughter I wanted you to be and do something right?_ , and she kept hearing a baby down the hall crying and its screams merged with the phantom sound of a child laughing in her head, and suddenly, there were deep, bloody, half-moon indentations dug into Addison's pale hands.

She curled up into a ball and rolled onto her side, and then instead began counting floor tiles, not really faring any better than she did with ceiling tiles.

The act of moving made her actually notice the slight tug of pain in her abdomen, and her hand trailed down to her stomach to trace one of the three small scars on her abdomen.

It made the tears pool in her eyes all over again, and she choked on a sob. The only tangible memory she'd ever have of her maybe-baby would be three fading scars. Not adorably tiny baby clothes in neutral colours of yellow or green or white because she wasn't far along enough to know whether it was a girl or boy yet, or a copy of the ultrasound to keep in her pocket or wallet to take out and look at sometimes.

She didn't have anything, and it was once more all her fault because she was so stubborn in denying that there was a baby at all.

She didn't deserve a baby. She jinxed it. She pretended there wasn't a baby and she said there wasn't a baby and now, there was no baby.

Some time passed. She managed to break her record of twenty-six tiles and made it to thirty-two. She changed position again, this time actually sitting up, with the sheets keeping her decent, given her knees were drawn to her chest and she was wearing a hospital gown, and she hugged her pillow for some semblance of comfort.

That baby down the hall started crying again – in all her years as a neonatal surgeon and OBGYN, delivering bad news and good news to parents all in the same department, she'd never realised what an awful idea it was to keep all these patients in such close quarters – and she plugged her ears and hummed loudly until he sopped. It felt childish, and it probably was childish – Bizzy would definitely have said it was childish – but her baby had just died and the last thing she wanted to hear was the crying of somebody else's living child.

Her chart was at the foot of her bed, lying on the table there. It would take next to no effort at all to grab it and read it and find out what happened to her baby, how she lost her baby, but she didn't want to know. She wanted just a few more minutes of being oblivious.

Deep down, she already knew what must have happened. She could remember the symptoms she'd been so fiercely denying, and the marks surgery had left on her body were a pretty big, pretty obvious clue.

But she just needed a little while longer. A few more minutes. Just a little more time during which it was unconfirmed.

However, eventually, that small masochistic part of her which just had to know, had to know for definite, won out and she reached over for the chart.

And she opened it. And she stared at it. And stared and stared and stared.

The medical information washed over her. She didn't get much far past the words _ectopic pregnancy_ and _ruptured Fallopian tube_ and _salpingectomy_.

She couldn't stop looking at it. It was like the entire world had faded around her and everything had narrowed down to the dark print on the paper in her hands which was fast becoming blurry as she blinked rapidly to avoid yet more tears falling.

Sometimes, when you hold a seashell to your ear, you can hear the distant roar of what appears to be the ocean.

Now the chart was in front of her and now she knew it really was her fault, the beeping of the few machines around her had faded and that distant roaring was all she could hear, and somehow now that there was no longer this constant little presence inside her she felt like she was so lonely she may as well be somewhere out in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by nothing more than blue and emptiness. Sure she had Amelia and Callie and Derek, others to some extent, but they all had their own lives, and she hadn't spoken to her brother or parents since she moved to Seattle from New York. Although it felt selfish when she should have been focused on the baby she so stupidly lost, it made her wonder, _would anyone notice if I was gone?_

If she'd had the baby, there would have always been somebody there to notice when she wasn't home. She'd have had a family.

But as it is, they wouldn't. Nobody would notice. Not for at least a few days. And even that brought forth the question, would they care? She was sure they'd be sad, but ultimately, they wouldn't. Not enough.

Her daughter would have.

Because although she would have loved a son just as much, she knew it was a girl.

Ella.

Not her full first name, but a nickname. For Elena, maybe, or Elizabeth. But Ella, all the same – of that much she'd been so sure, even when she was in complete denial of there being a baby.

There wasn't going to be an Ella now. The realisation rang through her head loud and clear once more.

There wasn't going to be an Ella now, and it was all her fault.

She wasn't sure how long she mulled over that horrible, horrible thought, but by the time she'd finished ruminating on it and had returned to trying to focus on the rest of the chart, Amelia was slipping into the room. She was drowning in a sweater Addison recognised as her own, and playing with the too-long sleeves in a way Addison knew was anxious habit.

Amelia gently slid the chart out of Addison's hands as the woman, unresistant, sat very still and watched her put it back down where it had been, and then flopped into the chair by Addison's bedside. "I'm so sorry, Addie," she told her. "There was nothing they could do. You know that."

"It's all my fault," Addison croaked, speaking her thoughts aloud, and it was only then she remembered she still hadn't had a drink since waking, because her throat was feeling raw and dry. "It's all my fault."

"It was an ectopic pregnancy," Amelia said. You know it was-"

"Doomed from the beginning. I know. But still."

She couldn't stand it – the pity in Amelia's eyes. They'd known each other for what felt like forever, but the pity almost felt guaranteed – Addison was certain there was probably at least some pity in her own eyes when Amelia was fifteen years old, hissing and spitting and scratching like an angry cat as Derek wrestled her into the car that would take her to rehab.

"You still lost a baby," Amelia said.

Addison shook her head. "Not a baby," she murmured. "An embryo. And it's all my fault."

It was all her fault. She lied to Mark and she lied to herself and she ignored the baby and she jinxed this and she was a failure as a surgeon and a person and a mother and so what if she was sorry?

That didn't make it hurt any less.

The pain was still there. The pain would always be there. It could fade and grow faint over time, like the scars which would forever serve as a constant testament to all her biggest failures, but it would always be there in the background, a constant reminder of it. Everything.

It didn't matter that she nearly did get an abortion, weeks ago, when she first found out, or that she still had the pills hidden behind an army of creams and shampoos at the back of her bathroom cupboard from when she still wasn't sure if she should throw them out, because her choice got taken away.

An entire future was torn from inside her and it felt like it took a chunk of her heart with it, too, because it was now like there was this hole inside her.

"You should drink something," Amelia told her.

"Scotch?" she smiled weakly to make it sound joking, although that was very much what she'd have liked to drink at the moment. She missed the familiar sting of alcohol sliding down her throat, days when feeling pathetic because the only biggest reason for her drinking scotch was because it reminded her of Mark were her biggest problem.

"Water," Amelia said. "Juju, later when I can find some. I might even spike it, if all the drugs have worn off by then and you're not getting any new ones."

She passed Addison the plastic cup of water which has been sat by her bedside, ignored, for a while now. She set it back down once Addison had taken a few sips – two sips. It was tap water and not bottled water, she could tell, and it was not like she minded the difference but… it was tap water. Still, it soothed the thirst in her throat somewhat.

Amelia pulled something small Addison couldn't quite distinguish out of her pocket. "This, uh… I got this for you," Amelia said, unclenching her fist from around the present to reveal a small stuffed unicorn roughly the size of Addison's thumb – the kind you could clip onto your key ring or hospital ID or stethoscope. "I got it before you lost the… embryo. I was going to get a matching, bigger one – you know, a huge one that's like, the size of a Doberman – for the kiddo, once they were born, 'cause I always wanted a unicorn the size of a Doberman, but… well, it would have felt wrong not to give it to you even though there won't be a matching one for the kiddo so here."

"Thank you," she said in a wavering voice that betrayed she was already about to cry, and then the unicorn was in her hand and she was crying, and Amy was patting her back and saying it was going to be okay, but it was not going to be okay. She wasn't sure it ever would be okay.

* * *

Today, Mark's drink of choice was whiskey.

Honestly, he hated the taste of whiskey. His drink had always been scotch, before, because he liked the taste of scotch, certainly a lot more than he did the taste of whiskey.

But right now Mark didn't care much about how he didn't like the whiskey, because it slid down his throat the same way scotch would, and he was too drunk to care about the difference in taste.

Mark had been drinking since… well, he wasn't sure since when. For a while. A long while. He said goodbye to the dead baby who was almost his daughter, found out that his real daughter or son had been aborted by the woman he loved – and goddamn, how was it still that beneath the anger and the betrayal, he still managed to love her? – and then went to Joe's. Then Joe closed The Emerald City Bar for the night, so Mark slept in his car for a little while, and then he woke up sometime in the late morning and went back to Joe's.

And while Mark had been drinking, he had been thinking. He had been thinking a lot of things.

He thought about Addison at first, and how mad he was at her. _There is no baby. You would have been a horrible father Mark._ Did she say horrible, or terrible? It didn't matter – either way, what she meant was still clear.

Mark liked to think that one day, he would be a great father. The kind of dad he always wanted, who made hot dogs and organised fun games at birthday parties. The kind of father Derek's dad had been. He'd always been slightly jealous of what Derek had – the four sisters, the loving parents, the house that was never quiet. He himself had always secretly wanted that, wanted the house with the backyard and the wife and the five kids.

It was what he'd once thought Lexie would be.

But she wasn't.

She was alive, though – awake and already on the path to recovery, although obviously devastated by the death of her baby, he knew from the texts Meredith had sent him.

What he thought about the most, though, was how he found out about the baby. It was that night – the same night Addison told him she'd had an abortion – and Callie was the one who spilled the beans when she asked about Addison and 'The Kiddo'.

Except… Callie and Amelia would have known if Addison'd had an abortion, right? If they'd been aware of the baby first, she wouldn't have allowed them to just continue thinking she was still pregnant, because there was only so long she could look non-pregnant for until they realised something was up.

Right?

And that's what Mark thought about the most. He tried out all the options – maybe she just hadn't gotten around to telling them, maybe in their tired states they'd just forgotten – and there was one which made the most sense, and it sent a warm flush of hope over him which may have just been the alcohol taking effect.

Maybe she didn't have the abortion. Maybe she was still pregnant.

So he payed Joe and he made his way over to the hospital, his movements a little slower and more lumbering than usual.

Once he got to the hospital he realised he had no idea where Addison was. He checked the NICU, the nursery, and many other places she could often be found in, but she wasn't in any of them.

He asked his favourite nurse, Jenny – at fifty something, old enough and married enough that he hadn't slept with her but nice enough that he still liked her – where she was. She nodded towards the hospital room a little to the right and across from the nurses's station, which currently had a closed door and closed blinds. It was the hospital room they generally reserved for important patients – ex-nurses or friends of the Chief, that kind of thing.

He reckoned she must be in there talking to her patient about a case, or something like that. Until a nurse exited the room and he caught a glimpse of red resting against hospital gown and realised that she wasn't.

And then he entered. He didn't stop to think about what he was going to say or take a deep breath. It could have been the alcohol, but it was more likely that it was Addison.

She wasn't crying when he entered. She had these red, puffy eyes which were tell-tale of the fact that she had been crying, a lot, and she was sniffing and hiccuping in a way that suggested she was crying recently, but there were no tears actually falling down her face.

She froze when she saw him.

He picked up chart. The words swam around the pages but he was able to decipher most of what was important. Ectopic pregnancy. That was the most important part. Ectopic pregnancy. He knew enough of what that entailed, having spent a lot of the last few months with Addison. He knew that it didn't matter whether she had an abortion – there was no baby, now.

He put the chart back down and looked at her. She saw the look on his face and promptly burst into tears again.

He was still angry. He was still betrayed. He still couldn't forget what she'd said. He still hadn't forgiven her.

Yet still, something deep inside of him reacted and he gently moved her a little toward the other side of the bed before kicking off his shoes and climbing in beside her, wrapping his arm around her tightly and stroking her hair in a way he knew she found comforting.

"You smell homeless," she told him in-between hiccupy breaths as she started to calm down.

"I'm in love with you," Mark replied.

 **Alright, that's a wrap! I'm not going to say I'm exactly happy about this chapter - there are just some points where I feel like the characters are rambling a little - but I think it's probably better than the earlier chapters of this that still make me cringe at some points? Anyway, thank you to all those who reviewed, and I finally figured out the review problem! From what I can tell, it only applies to guest reviewers, in that all reviews posted by guests seem to appear two days later than they should, although they do still appear on my email account after they're posted so I can read them.**

 **Thanks to all those who reviewed, because it really does brighten up a person's day.**

 **Irony-FLD – I agree it was sad, both to read and write :(. Mark and Addie should finally have a bit of a long overdue conversation about all this next chapter, and I promise that they will – eventually – be happy. I think. Anyway, I'm really glad you like my story and thank you for reviewing!**

 **Hushedgreylily – thank you, a lot, for thinking this was good and explaining that. I think it's very interesting to have a medical side of things too, and while that isn't always necessary in a Grey's Anatomy story, it can be a little annoying when it isn't mentioned at all within a fic when these are, after all, surgeons. I'm glad you're looking forward to more and that you like this so much** **and I thank you lots for reviewing.**

 **Wintermachine - I'm glad you like the fic, and the different perspectives – I don't think I really even realised I'd been writing from points of view that weren't Addison's or Mark's until you mentioned it. The Murphy's Law part wasn't really planned so much as me thinking about how much I like Murphy's Law and then thinking 'wait, I could implement this!' so I'm glad it worked out. Thank you for reviewing, both times!**

 **Guest – sorry? I definitely don't have the prosperity of someone writing for Shonda, should I be flattered though? I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that you 'don't care to read anymore' but I'm sorry you found this chapter unnecessary. Hey, things will perk up eventually?**


	11. Chapter 11: Every Breaking Wave

**Not everything I hoped it would be, admittedly, (I blame the end scene) but I like it nevertheless. This has gotten to the point where I don't even what to put her except spoilers, so enjoy! In case it isn't clear, this is actually two weeks after last chapter.**

 **Unchained Melody**

 **Chapter 11: Every Breaking Wave**

A sleek, black car pulled up outside Seattle Grace Hospital. The man who exited it looked befitting of the expensive vehicle, dressed in leather shoes and Armani.

He was a handsome man, and he walked with purpose. This was because Sam Bennet considered himself a man of purpose. It gave him an air of leadership and importance that Sam found he enjoyed.

When he walked towards the entrance of Seattle Grace Hospital, Sam had two main purposes in mind: firstly to find Mark, apologise to his best friend and possibly reconcile, then find out where Lexie was staying so that, secondly, he could find her and offer his condolences. Whilst Sam would not be making an appearance at his daughter's funeral - he'd been under the impression for many months now that Lexie'd had an abortion as he'd advised her to, and wasn't invited to the funeral anyway, having found out about it from a student of his that had been friends with Lexie – he hoped to get back into the Sloans' good graces, because it would be a shame to put so many years of friendship to waste.

Sam came to an abrupt stop before the doors of Seattle Grace and pulled an inhaler out of his pocket as he felt a familiar tightness in his chest before continuing in his journey and slipping the object back into his pocket.

However, upon stepping out of the hospital elevator after having gone through the process of finding out where the plastics wing was located, Sam found himself having a third purpose in mind: finding out the name of the blonde woman charting at the nurses' desk and taking her out somewhere.

Although usually Sam was not really partial to blondes – he preferred brunettes and, at one brief point in his college and med school days, redheads – there was something he liked about this one. She was tall and lean, with long legs. She somehow managed to look good in scrubs – a feat Sam considered impressive, given he'd been under the impression that nobody could look good in scrubs – but what made this all the more impressive was that they were salmon scrubs, and he knew few people who could look good in salmon.

Naturally, Sam wanted to complete the most important of his three tasks first, so he approached the blonde. Up close, she was a little too thin to be healthy – her collarbone poked out sharply, prominently and the same seemed to go for her shoulders – and there were pink, puffy rings around her eyes, fading purple bags beneath them.

Nevertheless, she was still a beautiful woman. Sam, like most men, liked beautiful women.

"Hey," Sam greeted the woman. His flirting was a little rusty – having been married to Naomi, he hadn't used it in a while; his adulterous relationship with Lexie began in them drunkly kissing and then moving on into something more – but he reckoned he still had game. Mad game. "I'm Sam."

"Hello Sam," the woman replied. "How can I help you?"

"That depends," Sam said. "On whether you're free tonight at eight o'clock?"

The woman laughed. "Are you hitting on me?" she asked. "In a hospital?"

"Is it working?" he asked, and she smiled.

"Maybe," she said.

"Can I at least have your name?" Sam said.

"Addison Montgomery," she told him. "I'm a surgeon. Neonatal."

Addison. It suited her. He'd been thinking along the lines of Kate, or maybe Maddy.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Addison Montgomery," he said, and he was about to continue talking but before he could do so, a fist hit his jaw with an almost audible crack and he fell to the floor with a shout of pain.

For the second time in a month, Seattle Grace Hospital bore witness to get another fight, and the only difference this time was that Mark was the one initiating and Sam didn't hit him back.

"What the hell, Mark?" he heard Addison yell angrily. Mark – that explained it.

He shook off the stars he was seeing and looked up. Addison was glaring at Mark, who was – the nerve of it – smirking and shaking off his fist. He had a new, fading cut on his cheek, from God knows what because although Mark Sloan's behaviour was hardly gentlemanly, he was not one to partake in fights.

"That's Sam," Mark said simply. "Sam is an asshole. You deserve someone a lot better than Sam. Like me. I'm a much better guy than Sam."

" _You're_ the asshole," Addison told him, and then she joined Sam on the floor to gently check his face. "You broke his jaw!" she cried out indignantly, and that explained a lot of the really bad pain Sam was feeling. His teeth weren't fitting together right – malocclusion was what that was called, if he was correct.

Mark nodded, as though this didn't bother him at all. "Yeah, that was a good punch," he said. "If I do say so myself. Put my weight behind it."

Addison helped Sam up. She asked one of the staring nurses – didn't these people have anything better to do? – to please get her an ice-pack, and then turned on Mark.

"You can't just randomly punch a guy out!" she exclaimed.

"He's an asshole!"

"Yeah? Cause he was being nice!"

"Oh, I _bet_ he was being nice."

"You _did not_ just punch him out because he was talking to me. That's juvenile."

"Well, did it catch your attention?"

"What?"

"All I'm saying is, I told you I loved you and then you ignored me for two weeks but then I punched an asshole and look at that, you're finally speaking to me, Addison, so if you ask me I'm smart and not juvenile."

She huffed angrily. Neither of them seemed to have yet noticed that the verbal brawl they were having was quite literally being watched by everyone within vicinity. A nurse handed Addison the ice pack she requested – she glared at Mark, thanked the nurse, and passed it to Sam, helping him carefully manoeuvre it over where the fracture in his jaw seemed to be. He tried to thank her, too, but his jaw was swelling and he was finding it very hard to speak right now, and she wasn't even listening.

"Now you can go and take him up to orthopaedics for treatment," Addison told Mark angrily. "If you excuse me, I have a patient." She stalked off, and when Sam saw the wrath in Mark's eyes, he found it impossible to suppress a gulp.

* * *

They x-rayed Sam's face. It was indeed broken. Though it may have sounded petty, that made Mark feel pretty happy.

Sam was prescribed antibiotics, and arrangements were made for when he'd have his upper and lower teeth wired together, which was pretty much the only treatment he needed.

"Why are you even here?" Mark asked Sam sourly as they sat, awaiting the maxillofacial surgeon. "Seattle is mine. I came here first. It is my terrain."

"Well in case you haven't forgotten, there is a funeral tomorrow," Sam replied. "I came to give Lexie my sympathies. This is, after all, my kid."

Mark snorted. "She's Lexie's kid," he said. "You can claim her as yours when you give birth to her – all alone – and then have to spend the next few weeks organising eulogies and arguing with the funeral home."

"What, and you were the one helping her?" Sam said.

"Lexie's a big girl," Mark replied. "She can take care of herself. That doesn't mean you have any rights to come barging in here without any warning like that. Besides, Lexie left the hospital ages ago, and you'd know that, so you have no excuse for coming here."

"I don't know where she is," Sam defended himself. "I figured she was probably at her parents' but I don't know where that is, and I don't know their names, and I can't remember whether Lexie's maiden name is spelt with an 'a' or an 'e'. So I thought you'd know."

In actuality, she was still staying at Meredith's house. Mark, feeling sorry for her and trying to share the spirit of new friendship in the face of their truce, had given her his room and claimed the attic. They were cordial, although they didn't see each other much. She was considering moving in with Molly, but that could be hard for her given Molly had her own, living baby girl.

"She's staying at 613 Harper Lane. It's not that far from here," Mark told him. "But don't be an asshole, asshole."

"Speaking of assholes, what was up with the blonde, man? I don't think I've ever seen you that territorial of a _girl_."

"Don't do that. Don't do the friend thing. We're not friends."

"What was her name? Madison, right? What's up with you and Madison?"

Mark scowled at him. "It's _Addison_ ," he said. "And you keep your dirty, adulterous paws off her."

"You know, you can hardly call me an adulterer without sounding hypocritical anymore. I mean, assuming you've slept with her – and let's face it, you're Mark Sloan, you've definitely tapped that – you're also become an adulterer yourself. You and Lexie aren't divorced yet, right?"

"We're separated. And the fact that we're getting divorced at all is your fault."

"Well, if I hadn't ever slept with Lexie you wouldn't have come to Seattle and met Madison, so really, you should be grateful to me. Forgive me."

A short bark of laughter escaped Mark's mouth. "Forgive you?" he said, making it sound like Sam had asked for a kidney. "You were my best friend and you slept with my wife. And for the last time, her _name_ is Addison."

"I forgave you!" Sam exclaimed. "And what you did was far worse."

"What I did was an accident. Did you accidentally fall inside Lexie? On a weekly basis for six months?"

"'Take my bike for a spin, Sam,' you said," Sam said in a mocking imitation of Mark's voice, the anger drawing in his face too. "Just try it. 'The ladies love a bad boy with a bike. I bet Nae would like it.' And then your f*cking bike broke and slipped and I'm the one who lost his hands, Mark! I'm the one who suffered the nerve damage! You ruined my life! You're the reason I traded in surgery to become a goddamn professor and you're the reason I was teaching at Harvard, so it's only because of you that I screwed Lexie. It was all your fault!"

"I said I was sorry!" Mark roared. "Do you think it's easy carting around that kind of guilt? If you wanted revenge, you should have gone about it another way!"

They were both breathing heavily now, and drool was trickling from the corner of Sam's mouth as a result of his frustration paired with the broken jaw. He swiped it away, annoyed, with his sleeve.

Mark's fist was clenched into a fist once more. The urge to punch Sam again and fracture the other side of his jaw too was overwhelming, but he thought of all the repercussions that could have – Sam had enough reason to sue, as it was, and Mark wouldn't put that past him – and decided against it, instead leaving the room with a slam.

* * *

He found her curled up on the couch, as he knew he would. Derek sat down beside her, one of his hands instinctively slipping into her hair to play with feathery strands of dishwater blonde.

"What're you doing?" he asked curiously.

"Knitting," Meredith replied. "Or, at least, I'm trying to. I wanted to make like, a dress or something – you know, something meaningful, but…" she held up something somewhat mangled that didn't look much reminiscent of any kind of clothing – "I think I'm going to have to settle for socks."

"I think you lost a stitch… there," Derek told her gently, pointing out the mistake. "And… maybe there."

Meredith looked at the socks and sighed deeply, discarding them and the knitting needles. "I think I'll just buy something," she said. "Do you know what Lexie's doing?" she asked.

"She's trying to choose an outfit for the baby to be buried in," Derek told her. "I think Thatcher and Susan are helping."

Thatcher and Susan had become a bit of a semi-permanent fixture at the house, although things were a little stunted and painful to say the least. Meredith still remembered the way Thatcher's lip curled in distaste when Lexie introduced her daughter as Susannah Elise; she could tell he thought it was too close to the name 'Ellis' for comfort, although she didn't think Lexie had even thought of the correlation.

He didn't say anything, of course. Nobody would. Lexie's husband was divorcing her and her baby had just died. She was all alone. It would be cruel to say something.

God, it must have been be hard for Lexie, with things that way. "Promise you'll never leave me?" she asked Derek through sleepy cat-like eyes, and the wording of this request was poor to say the least – doctors knew better than anyone to never make promises – but he smiled.

"Promise," he said, and wow did Meredith love her McDreamy.

* * *

The day passed and despite its strange beginning, for Addison it was fairly normal. A day like any other.

The nurses thought she was taking drugs. They had, of course, heard of her hospitalisation and although Addison was on good terms with a majority of the nurses, they were nurses and they were inclined to gossip. She heard three of them talking about it in the cafeteria and later, two of them debating whether she was taking Valium or Ambien.

Just what about her was it exactly that screamed she needed help? Why was it expected of her to handle what happened in all the wrong ways? She was a doctor, a double-certified neonatal surgeon, a damn good one!

She was a doctor – so she ignored the gossip and the rumours and went about her day as she usually would. It was her third day back at work, so she still had a little to catch up on. A pregnant teenager, elective caesarean surgery in one case of vasa previa, two deliveries, one diagnosis of gastrochisis in a 20 week old fetus, and three sick premature babies made up her day. Through some miracle, nobody died.

She was on her way out of the locker room and had just changed out of her scrubs when she nearly stepped on a little girl.

For a moment, Addison found she couldn't breathe. For just a moment, she thought this was Ella, this was the daughter she'd imagined in such painstaking detail, even though she knew that to thinks so was stupid and impossible and irrational.

And then the little girl tugged on her skirt and said, "'Scuse me, miss, I can't find my Mommy and she always said if I get lost to ask a nice lady to help me. Please can you help me find my Mommy?"

"Of course," Addison said, her mouth dry.

There was no way this child was anything like Ella. She was nothing like the child Addison had imagined and genetically speaking, it was highly unlikely that Mark and Addison could have ever conceived a child like her. She had olive skin, dark hair, and almond-shaped brown eyes; her looks suggested European heritage, something entirely different from the Irish roots Mark claimed to have.

"I'm Dr. Montgomery," Addison told the little girl, who slipped a small hand into Addison's. "What's your name?"

The little girl answered something indiscernible in the chaos of a sudden code blue erupting in the room beside them, and Addison once more had a mini heart attack when she heard it. "Did, uh, your name is Ella?" she choked.

"Nuh-uh," the little girl said. "Emma. Montreal. I'm six."

Emma. Two letters off Ella. Montreal. Six letters off Montgomery.

She was being irrational.

"It's nice to meet you, Emma," Addison said. "Do you remember where you last saw your mom?"

"We were going to see Daddy," Emma said. "'Cause he was in an accident. But she was walking too fast an' I got lost. You'll help me find her though, Dr. Monty, right?"

She'd always hated being called Monty – it was what her brother's friends used to call her, and most of them weren't the nicest people - but she didn't correct or reprimand Emma.

"I'm sure we'll find your mom soon," Addison told her. "Do you remember if your mom mentioned whether he was in trauma or neuro?"

Emma, unsurprisingly, didn't seem to know what either of the key words in the sentence meant, but she did know that her Daddy had hit his head bad, so Addison took her up to neuro.

She chattered the whole way up to neuro. While they were on their way to the elevator, she told Addison all about how her best friend was Karen and her favourite book was about Joey the Kangaroo and she didn't like spiders. In the elevator, she told Addison that her Daddy had always been really scared of elevators, because he got stuck in one once. Then she found out that Addison specialised in babies and asked an awkward question about how they were made which lead to Addison trying to explain the science behind how boy seahorses carry the baby instead of the girl seahorses. When they were finally in the neuro Ward, she was telling Addison all about the time she fell off her bike and got a concussion when-

"Mommy!" Emma exclaimed, and she let go of Addison's hand to run up to a frantic, crying woman who was being consoled by nurses.

"Oh my god, Emma!" the woman said, picking her up and hugging her close. "Don't you ever scare me like that again!"

"Is Daddy okay?" Emma asked, and her mother said they could go see him now, and Addison left.

A part of her missed the kid. Her hand was grubby and a little sweaty, and her nails, bitten to the quicks, were painted a sparkly shade of pink.

She was a pretty good kid.

Ella would have been a good kid, she thought, and it wrenched a silent sob from deep within her so she quickly slipped into a supply closet before she could burst into tears and humiliate herself anymore than she had since Lexie Sloan's arrival at Seattle Grace Hospital.

She would not cry. She would not cry. She would not cry.

She couldn't cry. Crying was weak, and if she cried she wouldn't be able to get over it. If she started crying again now she'd never stop crying. Crying was for when you were home, in bed, and the darkness of your bedroom and the fabric of your pillow could hide and muffle your tears.

She tried to distract herself.

There was a lump in her throat. There was a technical term for that. What was the technical term for that? The globus sensation, right? Something like that. When inflammation of the throat gave one the impression that there was a mass inside of it, even when there wasn't.

Just when it felt like there was no distraction that would work, and she was getting worked up and she couldn't breathe, somebody slipped into the supply closet behind her. At first, it only made her panic more, but then she recognised the smell of coffee and leather and felt familiar strong arms wrap around her gently.

"Deep breaths," Mark instructed her, but the feel of his words against her neck only made her breaths hitch more. The supply closet barely held enough room for Addison, let alone Mark and Addison.

"It's okay," he told her, "just breathe in, breathe out." And it took her a while, and her eyes were so watery it was a miracle they hadn't flooded and tracked make-up all down her face, but eventually she calmed down.

"You okay?" Mark asked her.

She took that last, deep breath and then pulled herself free of his hold. "I'm fine," she said, as composed as she could be when she was in a cramped supply closet and she was fairly sure she'd just had a panic attack. "How did you even know I was here, Mark?"

"I was consulting on a case for Amy and heard you on my way out. You're lucky I have freakishly good hearing," Mark said. "Besides, I think I should be the one asking questions, Addison. I tell you I love you, and then you don't speak to me again for the next two weeks, either pretending to be asleep – yes, I know you were faking, of course I knew – or just plain avoiding me like you have been since you could get out of bed."

"You don't love me," Addison insisted. Her hand was on the door handle, but she knew he was aware of that, and he'd stop her if she tried to leave. "You just think you do. I mean, the way you treat Lexie sometimes… you guys were married! You must have loved each other, at some point at least. You forgive somebody if you love them. You're there for them. You fix things. And you just… left. You got bored, Mark, and then you got your excuse to leave so you left. And one day, you'd get bored of me too."

"You're saying that based off stuff you've heard from Lexie and Meredith and nurses," he said. "Let me tell you my side of things."

He deserved this at least.

"Fine then," she said, folding her arms over her chest. "Go on."

"We were both unhappy, Addie," he said. "When Lexie and I got married, she was just a kid. Like, nineteen or twenty or something, I swear. We dated for like, a few months – max – and then we had this tiny wedding in Vegas which I can barely remember. We were married two, three years. It didn't really work. I had a life in New York, and she had all these commitments in Massachusetts that it would be unfair to take her away from. It wasn't fair, our marriage Addison, on either of us. I kept her from enjoying her college days properly, because no twenty-something year old should have to worry about what her husband's doing or when he's coming over – she should be drinking and partying and having fun – and you start to feel guilty about that eventually. Lexie wasn't ready for any commitments, let alone the big commitments. We could have stayed married and raised her baby together, but we would have been miserable. We were unhappy, Addison. The difference now is that I was unhappy, and you made me happy again. You make me happy. So I'm sorry that I lied to you, and I bought you into this mess, and I am so, so sorry about the baby, but please can you forgive me? I love you."

She was still and silent for a moment. It made him nervous.

"Sixty days," she announced finally.

"What?"

"Sixty days," she repeated. "I forgive you, so if both of us can manage sixty days without sex, then I'll give you another chance. That's my offer."

"I'll take it!" Mark exclaimed with a grin that could have split his face, so joyful that for a moment he forgot they were in a closet and tried to swing her round in the air, which landed in them both landing on the floor, Addison a little bruised but actually laughing for what felt like the first time in years.

 **Okay, so, they talked. About some stuff. Hopefully, next chapter more of their talking will be about the baby. And Sam finally made his appearance. I think I plan on doing the funeral next chapter, but I doubt Sam will really be making any more appearances in the near future. Maybe eventually if I decide to do something with the whole Maya-baby storyline. Oh, and the sixty days bet is on! Prematurely, but ok. I've messed up the timeline sufficiently for this anyway. Prom will probably be happening soon, at this rate.**

 **Oh, yeah, obviously, there will be some questions about this chapter probably - like, why is Addison blonde and why is she wearing salmon scrubs? That will be explained next chapter, too. Promise.**

 **Thanks to all those who reviewed!**

 **Wintermachine – thank you! I thought it was pretty okay too. Sad, sad chapters are to be expected, although I don't think this one is all that sad really. Yeah, I did take a little inspiration from that Burke/Cristina scene – Cristina was actually originally my favourite character in the series, until Addison made her grand entrance. I must have spent ages, quite honestly, trying to find a way to fit those last two lines in because they were my favourites so far. Thanks for reviewing!**

 **Irony-FLD - I'm so glad you love this chapter! Showing some of what Addison felt and what her perspective was sort of was the aim of that chapter, so I'm glad you liked that and what the characters felt and everything. As you can see, we didn't get to see Addison's direct reaction to Mark said, mostly because I didn't really have a way to fit it in, but there are some second-hand accounts of it. Thanks for reviewing!**

 **Ianuaria – I don't know but given I practically idolise you, I'm glad you did. Thanks so much for reviewing!**

 **Patsy – oh my gosh thanks so much! Really, I'm flattered :). I'm sorry you cried but I'm glad you felt the chapters were well-written. After all that angst, I felt like people deserved a little pure Maddison, so, yeah. Thank you so much, you're a brilliant reviewer!**

 **Hushedgreylily – hope you enjoyed your holiday in Cornwall! Thank you! Getting all caught up was my worry, so I'm glad things didn't come off that way. I'm glad you like the new twist on things, and I'm sorry your heart broke! Thank you for reviewing, and I'm glad you're looking forward to more!**


	12. Chapter 12: Yellow

**Ok, warning, there isn't as much of the funeral as I thought there would be. This was my seventh stab at this chapter, and all the previous ones were set during the funeral and described the coffin and the sunflowers and everything, but I never got far and the one good draft I made got stuck on my computer drive at work, where I shall not be returning until September. So, sorry. I definitely don't like this chapter, although I don't know if that's just because I've read over it until I hate it. Either way, I just hope you guys like it more than I do at least.**

 **Unchained Melody**

 **Chapter 12: Yellow**

She looked into the smeary, cracked mirror of the church bathroom and wasn't quite sure how the woman reflected could be her.

It wasn't that she truly was different, per say.

Sure, her hair was blonde but her face was the same. She still had blue-green eyes and that small scar above her right eyebrow from when she fell off her bike as a kid and scraped up her face so badly Archer had to carry her home. She was dressed in dark, demure clothing – as was befitting of a funeral – but it was still designer.

It wasn't that she was different, except she was.

She _felt_ different.

Lonely, for the most part, which was… ridiculous, because she had Mark. One day strong, with fifty-nine to go. He was sat behind her in the back pew of the building, sat close enough that their shoulders were touching and the warmth of his body was stopping her from getting cold amidst the arctic temperatures of the church.

But hadn't it been said before, that to feel alone surrounded by people was entirely possible? All too easy, in fact?

It was not that she didn't appreciate Mark. Part of her thought that she may have reciprocated his feelings, that she may have also been in love.

However… well, right at that moment, Lexie was very obviously inconsolable. She was in the depths of misery, and she looked it. She was drowning in a suit she must have borrowed from her sister or mother, small and pitiful even with the equally sparrow-like Molly and Meredith either side of her. She was pale, trembling, and puffy-eyed, dwarfed by the huge marble alter, by the hushed crowd of the procession, and seemingly by all of the events unrolling around her. It was very obvious Lexie had never been taught to internalise her pain.

She was an entirely different kind of lonely.

Her kind of lonely was justified. She had a dead baby to whom she had to give a final goodbye.

Addison didn't have a baby, just a gaping hole she tried to cover up with a band-aid of _Golden Wheat_ hair dye and salmon-coloured scrubs that were a new hospital policy.

Because if she _looked_ different, she'd _feel_ different.

Except she didn't really feel different at all. She didn't feel much, period.

And she didn't leave the funeral under the guise of needing to use the bathroom because she needed to cry. She'd stopped crying. She left the funeral because the priest was talking, and he was talking about how this was all _God's plan_ and the baby was in a better place and it made her want to _scream_.

There are five stages of mourning and anger is supposed to come before depression but it seemed Addison couldn't even grieve right. At times she wasn't sure who it was she was grieving. Lexie's daughter? Addison's daughter? Addison herself?

Sukie was a very tiny baby – she couldn't have weighed more than four pounds, if that – and even the cream-coloured cotton blanket she was tightly swaddled in shrouded her, concealing most of her heart-shaped Lexie-like face. She was also dwarfed by the events unrolling around her, by the dark mahogany coffin, by the sad faces which peered into her open casket.

The reasoning behind swaddling is to manufacture feelings of warmth and safety, recreate the environment of the womb where Sukie wasn't dwarfed or alone, but happy and loved. A part of Addison strongly suspected the reasoning behind swaddling Sukie, specifically, for her funeral instead of dressing her in some elaborate Christening-type dress or something, was because Lexie didn't want her daughter to feel the same kind of alone that she did.

Addison wanted to be swaddled. Not – in a blanket, because she wasn't a baby, and that would be weird. It was like… swaddled in Mark, warm and safe deep within the embrace of his arms. Or swaddled in alcohol, her world cushioned by drunken delusion, her feelings numbed by the magical powers of vodka or scotch.

Swaddled probably wasn't the right terminology.

She wanted to put something on top of it, was probably a better way of putting things. Not drugs, like Amelia used to, nothing that would result in her attending meetings and saying, "Hi, I'm Addison, I'm an addict," but something like what swaddling did for Sukie and symbolised for Lexie, something like how she used to be able to go into surgery after a crappy day and instantly feel better.

She needed something to fill the void.

* * *

The funeral reception was a disaster from the beginning, with Lexie locking herself in her bedroom and having some kind of nervous breakdown tat made the guests worry about her being a suicide risk, and Meredith and Cristina breaking out the liquor almost straight away.

Perhaps becoming inebriated was not the best, nor most respectful, way of saying goodbye to Sukie Grey but given the interns were already far drunker than everybody else by far she found no shame in having a drink. And then another. And then another.

Mark, who ended up spilling more than a few tears during the funeral, joined her.

Somehow, it was to no surprise that she once more found herself in a bathroom, except this one was a lot more familiar than the last – she remembered the last time she was here, Izzie banging on the door as her and Mark's shower stretched past the forty-five minute mark – and Mark's lips were trailing a little sloppily but very pleasurably along her clavicle, which seemed incongruously funny now that she was drunk and her back was pressed against a bathroom wall that was thankfully nowhere near as grimy as the one at the church.

Numb the pain, numb the sad, feel good, put something on top of it…. This was exactly what she wanted. Wasn't this exactly what she wanted?

Wait, she was forgetting something. What was she forgetting? Her purse, did she leave her purse at the church? Was this wall right against that of Lexie's bedroom, or something? It was…

Oh, _crap_.

Not having sex for sixty days sounded like a much better prospect when you weren't drunk, and you weren't in need of something to put on top of it, and your hands weren't beginning to unbuckle Mark's pants of their own accord.

But it wasn't like she could really break the pact now – she was genuinely a little curious if Mark would be able to make it – so with a sigh of disappointment, she shoved Mark away.

He looked more than a bit confused.

"I can't put you on top of me," Addison tried to explain to him, although her words slurred a little.

"Well, I don't have to be on top if that's what you mean," he started to say with a grin, hands already beginning to slip back around her body, but she whined in annoyance and stepped away.

"No, no, the sixty day pact," she said. "We can't break it on what's basically day one just 'cause we gotta, um… numb the bad, or… numb the sad? Anyway, no, no sex."

"But technically, if it's not sex…."

She shook her head. "Nuh-uh."

"Oh." He appeared disappointed. She understood. So was she.

Mark climbed into the bath. Fell, really, because he started to climb in but then slipped.

"What're you doing?" she asked.

"You- wanted to numb the sad," he fumbled, trying to explain. "And, uh, at the hospital, I crawled into your hospital bed and I hugged you and it sort of numbed the pain, made stuff feel okay for a while, but we don't have a hospital bed so this is the closest we'll get to that. Climb in," he encouraged her, "and then I'll hug you, and it'll be okay and the pain will be numbed for a while."

It sounded like the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard, except it was oddly sweet, and it felt like it almost made sense, so she did climb in (which was a lot harder than expected, given she was terribly coordinated at the moment and was also wearing a dress) and it was worth it because when his arms wrapped around her and she rested her head against his chest so she could hear the soft _labdub_ of his heartbeat, it felr way better than just putting something on top of it.

It felt not-empty. Whole. When she was with him, she didn't feel blonde, or different. Just okay. Happy.

* * *

The average period of mourning for the parent of a bereaved child is two years.

Well, it'd been two weeks and Lexie wanted to die. Whether she'd make two years was arguable, and whether she'd get over Sukie's death within two years was something she'd consider downright impossible.

She spent the funeral doing everything she could to not-cry. Because if she started crying, she'd break down completely and that was all wrong for this funeral, the only opportunity she'd ever have to show people her daughter, how pretty and all-out completely amazing she was, and the last opportunity Sukie would have to be so close to life.

But once she got home all pretence had melted away and it was all she could do to lock herself in her room before she felt the white-hot burn of painful sadness and hurled a high-heeled pump she borrowed off Molly at the wall so hard the plaster cracked.

Then she slid to the floor, hugged herself because there was nobody else who would, and sobbed loudly and openly because it wasn't like anybody who heard would care.

Molly and Eric took Laura to the funeral. They were going to leave her home but the babysitter quit at the least minute and they couldn't find a replacement, Molly explained.

Laura was a pretty baby. She didn't look much like Sukie, but they had the same nose, Lexie was certain of it. And the same chin. She spent the funeral mewling softly into Eric's chest, like some kind of kitten, and for the most part sleeping, completely unaware of the playmate she'd never get to meet.

If Sukie hadn't died, Lexie had a sneaking suspicion she wouldn't have been like Laura. Karmic retribution probably would have made her one of those colicky, screaming babies who hardly ever slept.

What Lexie would give for that kind of baby. What she would give to be able to hold a warm, wriggling body in her arms at night, instead of staring at a blank ceiling all alone in a dark room full of silence.

 _Soft tufts of dark hair. Twenty-three thin, delicate eye-lashes. A small, snub nose. Rosebud lips. Two ears, two hands, two feet. Tiny half-moon slivers of nail atop each matchstick finger and each small toe._

 _Susannah Elise Grey._

She would give _anything_.

She'd have died, if it meant Sukie could have lived.

Because this, this wasn't living.

In order to live, you needed to have a purpose.

And her purpose had just been buried beneath six feet of fresh dirt.

* * *

They hadn't been talking much, if at all.

They had, however, been in the bathroom for a while. Long enough that they'd sobered up somewhat and the sky outside had become a little darker.

It had just been the sound of the tap dripping and the two of them breathing and some of what must have been the reception downstairs, and it'd all felt oddly serene.

"I would have called her Ella," Addison declared, breaking the silence in a way that felt sudden.

"What?"

"The baby. I would have called her Ella. It would have definitely been short for something, although I don't know what – Elena, Elizabeth, Melissa? – but I would have called her Ella. It's always been Ella for a girl, in my head."

She couldn't be sure because she couldn't see him, but she thought his confused face must have softened upon hearing her explanation.

"What about for a boy?" he asked.

"What?"

"Well, you said it's always been Ella for a girl, in your head. Did you have a name for if it was a boy?"

She said the name proudly, smiling. "Carson."

He nodded slowly. "I like it," he told her. "They're good names."

There was another beat of the quiet which had been filling the bathroom and then he said, "I liked Elle."

"What do you mean?"

"When I… when I thought you were pregnant. I thought, if it was a girl, I'd have liked the name Elle. It's pretty."

"It's a nice name. How'd you come up with it?"

"It's, uh, what the Mr. and Mrs. Shepherd we're going to call Amelia before she was born. Ellen, but Elle for short. After Mr. Shepherd's mother. I just… always thought it was a pretty name."

"What do you think she would have been like?" Addison wondered.

"Who, Mr. Shepherd's mom?"

"No, Mark, the baby."

"A mini-you," he decided. "She'd have red hair, of course, and big blue eyes, and she'd be totally stubborn which would be annoying but we'd both secretly like it a lot. And you'd have made sure she was the most best-dressed baby ever, and maybe she would be a surgeon like Mommy and Daddy or maybe she'd want to be something different, a teacher or a lawyer or an artist, but it wouldn't matter because she'd still be the best thing that ever happened to us."

She let loose a mixture of a sob and a laugh. With a few minute exceptions, that was pretty much the opposite of all the things she'd thought Ella might have been, but that didn't matter. He'd thought about this. He cared.

She missed their baby.

She really missed their baby.

 **Ianuaria – she really does have a thing for hair dye and angst. Although I do think she suits being a redhead best. I wasn't originally planning the Mark-Meredith/Sam-Addison flip to the scene but then I was thinking Maddison and it let to me thinking about one-sided Addisam thwarted by Mark and…. Yeah. Lexie will be fine eventually, I think. Though of course she'll probably never completely get over this. Thank you!**

 **Irony-FLD – thanks! I mean, the sixty days definitely won't be the same as they were on the show. I've sort of planned the ending for it although it's not definite or complete yet? Oh, but stuff shall happen, and it will be Stuff with a capital S. Or, at least I think it will. It's okay to feel sad for Mark, at this point it's definitely understandable, but I promise he'll be happy eventually.**

 **Kae – sorry! The review you left about how much you loved the Maddison baby actually nearly drove me to do something a little less drastic which wouldn't have resulted in no Ella, but ultimately I don't think that could have really worked. Anyway, part of me doesn't think Ella was ever really meant to be.**

 **Patsy – yep, sixty days! I was so disappointed when that didn't work out during the show, especially as ultimately Addison sleeping with Alex wasn't even anything except a random occurrence in the plot, so two possible relationships went to waste. I mean, I included a lot less of the funeral than I thought I would, so I probably don't expect you to cry although I'll be pleasantly surprised if you do. Happy fourth even though that was like last month now that I reply! Thanks.**

 **Winter machine – Sam is a very smug person, although his personality seemed to changed radically between seasons 1 / 2 and the later seasons when he was 'in love' with Addison. Thank you! I don't think this was ever really what I pictured when I first came up with this fic, but I'm starting to like it quite a bit.**

 **Guest – gracias!**

 **Hushedgreylily – I didn't like Sam after he changed after he began his relationship with Addison, so I can definitely say that him being punched by Mark made me pretty happy too. Hopefully, future parallels shall be successful. Thank you for reviewing!**

 **Kae (again, sorry) – yeah, I liked the ending too. I thought it could pass as Maddison but still not be OOC. To be honest, I do think the whole point of Ella here was bringing Maddison closer together. And yay, sixty day pact! I could never end it like ok TV, because that was one of my least favourite moments of Grey's. Thanks!**

 **Ianuaria – okay, okay, I'm updating! And you're to thank for it, really, because I hadn't realised this chapter was ready but un-published until I read your review. Thank you!**


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